An Intersectional Approach to Ethnoracial Disparities in Pathways to Care Among Individuals With Psychosis in Coordinated Specialty Care

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Amplify OnTrackNY publication summaries summarize peer-reviewed publications focused on quality improvement or research conducted to help us learn & improve the program.

Study snapshot

This project looked at how different factors impacted the time it takes for young people experiencing early psychosis to receive mental health treatment.

This study asks:

Do personal, social, or clinical factors - such as ethnoracial background, gender, living situation, insurance, symptoms, experiences with mental health services, etc. - impact how long it takes:

• To access mental health services after first experiencing symptoms of early psychosis (onset to first contact)
• To receive OnTrackNY services, known as Coordinated Specialty Care (first contact to OnTrackNY enrollment)

Study findings

Teams report on participant substance use, symptoms, and hospitalizations at enrollment and every three months after. For this study, authors looked at information collected between October 2013 and December 2019.

Finding 1. For Asian, Black, Latinx, and multiracial individuals, the time from when they started experiencing symptoms to their first contact with services was longer, compared to White individuals. However, they had a relatively shorter time from first contact with services to enrolling in OnTrackNY. The authors also found that individuals who may face more challenges due to combinations of social and clinical factors (homelessness, public insurance, depression, etc.) had the longest time from the start of symptoms to first contact with services, longer than any specific ethnoracial group.

Figure 1: What data were used

This project included data from 1,726 individuals enrolled in OnTrackNY, aged 16 to 30 years, with diverse ethnoracial backgrounds.

Figure 2 shows how the different time periods that were explored in this project were defined.

Final thoughts

This project found that the time it took people with early psychosis to receive treatment varied depending on their ethnoracial background and other social and clinical factors. Learning how various factors can cause delays in getting treatment for people who need it may help guide strategies to connect different groups to services earlier.

References

1. van der Ven E, Jones N, Bareis N, Scodes JM, Dambreville R, Ngo H, Mathai CM, Bello I, Martínes-Alés G, Mascayano F, Lee RJ, Veling W, Anglin DM, Lewis-Fernandez R, Susser ES, Compton MT, Dixon LB, Wall MM. An intersectional approach to ethnoracial disparities in pathways to care among individuals with psychosis in coordinated specialty care. JAMA Psychiatry. 2022 June. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.1640. Epub 2022 June 29.

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