RESEARCH SYNTHESIS

Challenge

The St. Louis Mental Health Board and the St. Louis Region System of Care contracted with Behavioral Health Network of Greater St. Louis (BHN) as a partner to design and implement the 2017 Youth Behavioral Health Community Needs Assessment. The purpose of the needs assessment was to identify assets and needs that directly impact the St. Louis area, then to use these to inform recommendations and opportunities for the region’s response to youth’s behavioral health needs. BHN had conducted robust qualitative and quantitative data analysis that demonstrated clear priorities, needs and assets for youth in the region, but they wanted to place their primary research in the context of other regional reports and needs analyses that had recently been conducted by local community organizations, hospitals, service providers and researchers. BHN requested support to provide a cohesive synthesis and summary review of thirteen (13) regional reports and nine (9) Hospital Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs). They wanted to identify common themes across needs, services, gaps and recommendations for improving the behavioral health system for youth in the St. Louis region.

Solution

• Developed individual summary tables for each report and CHNA that identified the report’s focus population, priority needs, demonstrated barriers to care, research methodologies and recommendations
• Delivered a concise synthesis of all reports in narrative and table formats that extracted pertinent findings from each report and drew parallels across reports to identify overarching themes, complete with citations connecting each theme to specific report sources
• Articulated summary report analysis methodology, caveats and parameters to appropriately represent the context and nature of the findings

Grant Awards