Hilltop Receives NIMH Funding to Study Supported Employment for Persons with Mental Illness

The Hilltop Institute is the co-recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grant entitled Multiple-Impact Effectiveness of a State-Supported Employment Policy Initiative. The project will study the economic and health impacts of evidence-based supported-employment (SE) strategies for persons in Maryland Medicaid with serious mental illness (SMI). Such strategies were aggressively expanded in the mid- to late 2000s, the time frame of this investigation. The research effort will integrate data from several sources, including Maryland Medicaid and public mental health system claims, in order to evaluate the intensity of SE therapy received, as well as health and employment outcomes that appear to follow from that treatment. David Salkever, PhD, professor in UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, is the principal investigator on this work. Hilltop Senior Research Analyst Michael Abrams, MPH, will lead the Hilltop team for this project, which will also include Senior Programmer Jack Clark.

August 16, 2012