Behavioral Health

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis and treatment among adults in the United States have increased over the past few decades. However, there are sex, racial, and ethnic disparities in diagnosis and treatment, and underdiagnosis persists.

In light of the continuing opioid epidemic in the United States, DEA lifted a moratorium on approvals of new mobile medication units (MMUs) to increase access to OTPs. The new DEA guidance also authorized OTPs to add a “mobile component” to their existing registration, eliminating the separate registration requirement for MMUs.

Over one million Americans rely on nursing homes for care, yet nursing homes face challenges in recruiting and retaining staff. Nursing homes rely on registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and nursing assistants (NAs) to provide care, but staff shortages that increased during the COVID-19 pandemic have persisted.

In 2020, 53 million adults in the United States had a mental health condition and 40 million people ages 12 and older had a substance use disorder (SUD). The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) exacerbated mental health conditions and SUDs at a time when access to in-person care was restricted due to safety concerns.

The U.S. behavioral health (BH) workforce faces significant shortages and distribution disparities, hindering access to quality care and worsening health outcomes. A comprehensive, centralized database of BH providers is vital for advancing patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), comparative effectiveness research (CER), and evidence-based policymaking.

The first brief below provides insight into children’s and adolescents’ mental health service use in Medicaid and CHIP during the pandemic, by using a national Medicaid claims database.

The goal of this study was to examine the extent to which Medicaid providers who deliver behavioral health services shifted their practices to mostly tele-behavioral health services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The generic injectable drug market has recently experienced numerous shortages, which impose substantial public health costs. One potential cause of these shortages is low profitability of generic injectables. This brief examines the profitability of recently launched generic injectables.

This New Jersey case study provides insights into the daunting challenges states face in seeking to address the home care worker shortage, which has become more acute as New Jersey and other states have striven to “re-balance” Medicaid long-term services and supports use and spending away from institutional care toward home and community-based services.

Direct care workers (DCWs) such as nursing assistants, home health aides, and personal care assistants play an essential role in the health and well-being of over 20 million Americans. Yet DCW wages are not enough to make jobs competitive with entry level positions in other industries with similar job requirements which exacerbates the challenges in recruitment and retention of these workers.