By Merin C. MacDonald
In this month’s Team Spotlight, we highlight the work of the Mission Behavioral Health Lab, which joined the Division of Health Systems Science in the fall of 2022.
The lab is led by David Smelson, PsyD, professor of medicine in the Division of Health Systems Science and director of the Center of Excellence in Addiction and includes research team members Abigail Helm, PhD, research program manager, Paige Shaffer, MPH, PhD candidate, senior project director and chief data analyst, Jennifer Harter, PhD, senior project director, Michael Andre, MPH, research project director, Brooks Thompson, Kathryn Bruzios, MS, and Idalis Rivera-Ramirez, clinical research coordinators, and Kendra Caputo, Eleni Kachadoorian, Sarah Marcus, and Marinna Kaufman, clinical research assistants, as well as a dedicated team of clinical staff and students.
The Mission Behavioral Health Lab is dedicated to conducting state-of-the-art research toward advancing the understanding of the etiology, consequences, and treatment of addiction and mental health, as well as the implementation of evidence-based practices. Work in the lab includes an evidence-based intervention, called Maintaining Independence and Sobriety through Systems Integration, Outreach, and Networking (MISSION), which was developed in 2001 to specifically meet mental health, substance misuse, and other psychosocial needs of individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (CODs). MISSION combines several evidence-based practices into a system of care to address population-specific factors, provide COD treatment, and community-based support to sustain recovery.
The Mission Behavioral Health Lab’s research includes testing other novel behavioral and pharmacological treatments, community-based treatment engagement approaches, racial and ethnic disparities in care, mobile health devices, multisite implementation trials, and examining psychiatric epidemiological research across addiction. The lab has received funding from the NIH (National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute of Drug Abuse, and National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health), Department of Veterans Affairs, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, Bureau of Justice Administration, the Executive Office of the Massachusetts Trial Court, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, as well as several other states around the country. They have 12 federal grants including recently received funding for a 4-year grant titled “Supporting Treatment Access and Recovery for Co-occurring Opioid Use and Mental Health Disorders (STAR-COD),” as part of NIH’s The Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (HEAL Initiative).
The Mission Behavioral Health Lab serves as an "academic incubator” for collaborations within the Department of Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School, other University of Massachusetts campuses, and beyond, and we are thrilled to welcome their group to the Division of Health Systems Science.
Learn more about the Mission Behavioral Health Lab: Mission Behavioral Health Lab (umassmed.edu)
Learn more about MISSION here: www.missionmodel.org
Related Story by NIH on MISSION: A Whole Health Approach for Treating Opioid Addiction and Mental Illness