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OBJECTIVE: Suicidality is common among participants in clinical trials and health services research, but approaches to suicide risk assessment and mitigation vary widely. Studies involving vulnerable populations with limited access to care raise additional ethical concerns. The authors applied a community-partnered approach to develop and implement a suicide-risk management protocol (SRMP) in a depression study in an underresourced setting in Los Angeles. METHODS: Using a community-partnered participatory research framework, the authors designed and adapted the SRMP. Qualitative data regarding SRMP implementation included notes from SRMP development meetings and from study clinicians conducting outreach calls to study participants. Analyses included baseline and 6- and 12-month telephone survey data from 1,018 enrolled adults with moderate to severe depressive symptoms (8-item Patient Health Questionnaire score ≥10), of whom 48% were Black and 40% Latino. RESULTS: Community stakeholders prioritized a robust SRMP to ensure participant safety. Features included rapid telephone outreach by study clinicians in all cases of reported recent suicidality and expedited treatment access. Using a suicidality timeframe prompt of in the past 2 weeks, endorsement of suicidality was common (15% at baseline, 32% cumulative). Midway through the study, the SRMP was modified to assess for present suicidality, which reduced the frequency of clinician involvement. Overall, 318 outreach calls were placed, with none requiring an emergency response. Treatment referrals were provided in 157 calls, and outreach was well received. CONCLUSIONS: SRMP implementation in research involving underresourced and vulnerable communities merits additional considerations. Partnering with community stakeholders can facilitate the development of acceptable and feasible SRMP procedures.

ObjectiveCommunity engagement and planning (CEP) could improve dissemination of depression care quality improvement in underresourced communities, but whether its effects on provider training participation differ from those of standard technical assistance, or resources for services (RS), is unknown. This study compared program- and staff-level participation in depression care quality improvement training among programs enrolled in CEP, which trained networks of health care and social-community agencies jointly, and RS, which provided technical support to individual programs.MethodsMatched programs from health care and social-community service sectors in two communities were randomly assigned to RS or CEP. Data were from 1,622 eligible staff members from 95 enrolled programs. Primary outcomes were any staff trained (for programs) and total hours of training (for staff). Secondary staff-level outcomes were hours of training in specific depression collaborative care components.ResultsCEP programs were more likely than RS programs to participate in any training (p=.006). Within health care sectors, CEP programs were more likely than RS programs to participate in training (p=.016), but within social-community sectors, there was no difference in training by intervention. Among staff who participated in training, mean training hours were greater among CEP programs versus RS programs for any type of training (p

Racial-ethnic diversity among children in the United States is increasing. In 2000 children from minority groups accounted for 39% of the population under 18 (1), and the proportion is projected to rise to 48% in the next quarter century (2). Increasingly, evidence-based mental health interventions have been found effective for youths from ethnic minority groups (3,4). Nevertheless, these children are less likely than white youths to receive high-quality mental health services (5,6) and more likely to leave treatment prematurely (7). Strategies for addressing mental health disparities among youths are needed, because untreated depression in this population is associated with suicide, school dropout, pregnancy, substance abuse, and depression in adulthood (8-14). A promising approach to address health disparities has been to improve the quality of mental health services provided in primary care settings (15-18), because primary care is a gateway to mental health care for individuals from racial-ethnic minority groups. Quality improvement interventions in primary care settings aimed at improving access to evidence-based depression treatments have been found to be more effective than usual care for diverse groups of depressed adults (16,17,19), elderly persons (20), and adolescents from diverse backgrounds (21). In the Partners in Care study of adults, intervention effects on clinical outcomes were greatest for blacks and Latinos (22). The quality improvement interventions significantly decreased the likelihood of participant reports of probable depression at six- and 12-month follow-ups for blacks and Latinos in the study, whereas their white counterparts showed no such difference (22). In the IMPACT study of elderly adults, all racial-ethnic groups (blacks, Latinos, and whites) in the quality improvement condition showed greater rates of depression care, lower depression severity, and less health-related functional impairments than patients in the usual care group (23). No study has examined racial-ethnic differences in the impact of quality improvement interventions in an adolescent population. Youth Partners in Care is the first and largest study to evaluate a quality improvement intervention for depression among youths that was delivered in primary care settings. Results indicated that quality improvement aimed at increasing rates of evidence-based depression care (primarily cognitive-behavior therapy [CBT] and medication) was associated with improved depression and quality-of-life outcomes, satisfaction with care, and increased rates of care—primarily counseling (21). The study reported here examined the differential impact of the quality improvement intervention among racial-ethnic groups, with the overall goal of informing efforts to decrease mental health disparities and improve outcomes for youths from minority groups. We hypothesized that racial-ethnic differences similar to those found in studies of adults would result from the quality improvement intervention, such that black and Latino youths would report greater improvement in depression symptoms than their white counterparts six months after the intervention.