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Significance: Prior research suggests that Community Engagement and Planning (CEP) for coalition support compared with Re­sources for Services (RS) for program techni­cal assistance to implement depression quality improvement programs improves 6- and 12-month client mental-health related quality of life (MHRQL); however, effects for clients with multiple chronic medical condi­tions (MCC) are unknown. Objective: To explore effectiveness of CEP vs RS in MCC and non-MCC subgroups. Design: Secondary analyses of a cluster-randomized trial. Setting: 93 health care and community-based programs in two neighborhoods. Participants: Of 4,440 clients screened, 1,322 depressed (Patient Health Question­naire, PHQ8) provided contact information, 1,246 enrolled and 1,018 (548 with ≥3 MCC) completed baseline, 6- or 12-month surveys. Intervention: CEP or RS for implementing depression quality improvement programs. Outcomes and Analyses: Primary: depres­sion (PHQ9 ≥10), poor MHRQL (Short Form Health Survey, SF-12

ObjectiveCommunity Partners in Care, a community-partnered, cluster-randomized trial with depressed clients from 93 Los Angeles health and community programs, examined the added value of a community coalition approach (Community Engagement and Planning [CEP]) versus individual program technical assistance (Resources for Services [RS]) for implementing depression quality improvement in underserved communities. CEP was more effective than RS in improving mental health-related quality of life, reducing behavioral health hospitalizations, and shifting services toward community-based programs at six months. At 12 months, continued evidence of improvement was found. This study examined three-year outcomes.MethodsAmong 1,004 participants with depression who were eligible for three-year follow-up, 600 participants from 89 programs completed surveys. Multiple regression analyses estimated intervention effects on poor mental health-related quality of life and depression, physical health-related quality of life, behavioral health hospital nights, and use of services.ResultsAt three years, no differences were found in the effects of CEP versus RS on depression or mental health-related quality of life, but CEP had modest effects in improving physical health-related quality of life and reducing behavioral health hospital nights, and CEP participants had more social- and community-sector depression visits and greater use of mood stabilizers. Sensitivity analyses with longitudinal modeling reproduced these findings but found no significant differences between groups in change from baseline to three years.ConclusionsAt three years, CEP and RS did not have differential effects on primary mental health outcomes, but CEP participants had modest improvements in physical health and fewer behavioral health hospital nights.

ObjectiveThe effectiveness of community coalition building and program technical assistance was compared in implementation of collaborative care for depression among health care and community sector clients.MethodsIn under-resourced communities, within 93 programs randomly assigned to coalition building (Community Engagement and Planning) or program technical assistance (Resources for Services) models, 1,018 clients completed surveys at baseline and at six, 12, or 36 months. Regression analysis was used to estimate intervention effects and intervention-by-sector interaction effects on depression, mental health-related quality of life, and community-prioritized outcomes and on services use.ResultsFor outcomes, there were few significant intervention-by-sector interactions, and stratified findings suggested benefits of coalition building in both sectors. For services use, at 36 months, increases were found for coalition building in primary care visits, self-help visits, and appropriate treatment for community clients and in community-based services use for health care clients.ConclusionsRelative to program technical assistance, community coalition building benefited clients across sectors and shifted long-term utilization across sectors.

Awareness of the impact of disasters globally on mental health is increasing. Known difficulties in preparing communities for disasters and a lack of focus on relationship building and organizational capacity in preparedness and response have led to a greater policy focus on community resiliency as a key public health approach to disaster response. In this article, the authors describe how an approach to community engagement for improving mental health services, disaster recovery, and preparedness from a community resiliency perspective emerged from their work in applying a partnered, participatory research framework, iteratively, in Los Angeles County and the City of New Orleans.

Mental health research projects address sensitive issues for vulnerable populations and are implemented in complex environments. Community-based participatory research approaches are recommended for health research on vulnerable populations, but little is known about how variation in participation affects outcomes of partnered research projects. We developed a conceptual model demonstrating the impact of community engagement in research on outcomes of partnered projects. We collected data on key constructs from community and academic leaders of 21 sampled partnered research projects in two cycles of a research center funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. We conducted empirical analyses to test the model. Our findings suggest that community engagement in research is positively associated with perceived professional development as well as political and community impact.

Active participation of community partners in research aspects of community–academic partnered projects is often assumed to have a positive impact on the outcomes of such projects. The value of community engagement in research, however, cannot be empirically determined without good measures of the level of community participation in research activities. Based on our recent evaluation of community–academic partnered projects centered around behavioral health issues, this article uses semistructured interview and survey data to outline two complementary approaches to measuring the level of community participation in research—a “three-model” approach that differentiates between the levels of community participation and a Community Engagement in Research Index (CERI) that offers a multidimensional view of community engagement in the research process. The primary goal of this article is to present and compare these approaches, discuss their strengths and limitations, summarize the lessons learned, and offer directions for future research. We find that whereas the three-model approach is a simple measure of the perception of community participation in research activities, CERI allows for a more nuanced understanding by capturing multiple aspects of such participation. Although additional research is needed to validate these measures, our study makes a significant contribution by illustrating the complexity of measuring community participation in research and the lack of reliability in simple scores offered by the three-model approach.