The MINDS Hub Mission

with Founding Director, Bonnie Zima, MD MPH

Mission

To accelerate translational research dedicated to improving access, quality and equity of mental health care across the lifespan through application of advances in health informatics, data science and computational methods.

How We Will Meet Our Mission

Specialize in innovative analyses of existing cross-sectional and longitudinal clinical datasets, such as electronic health records (EHR), hospital discharge, and Medicaid claims data, to investigate novel scientific ideas and generate new methods that have the potential for significant impact on mental health care access, quality and equity.

•   Encourage the integration of existing public use data (e.g., American Community Survey) with clinical datasets (e.g., EHRs) for novel secondary analyses aimed at identifying potentially modifiable targets to improve mental health care equity. Leverage geographical linkage of person-level mental health service use and quality with community-level social determinants of health to identify the complex intersectionalities driving mental health disparities. 

•   Jointly strengthen mental health clinical informatics and services research methods through real-time application of advances in data science and computational methods to improve the delivery and monitoring of care for quality, safety, and equity at the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA.

•   Drive innovation using a team science approach that strategically includes a multi-disciplinary and diverse research workforce. Examples of expertise include health informatics, biostatistics, machine learning, disparities, public health, psychiatry, psychology, and nursing.

•   Promote interdisciplinary mentorship by carefully pairing early career investigators with senior research mentors.

•   Work in partnership using a community-partnered approach. At each project phase, guidance from a multi-stakeholder Advisory Group will be integrated. Our Advisory Group will purposively balance membership to enrich perspectives, adhere to community-based partnered research principles, and infuse insights from persons with lived expertise. Together, we will strive to continuously improve our research’s relevance, enrich our understanding of the target mechanisms identified, and accelerate dissemination of our findings.

Building on UCLA-Semel Institute’s Legacy

The MINDS Hub is a natural growth point in the Institute’s research portfolio, building on UCLA-Semel Institute’s extensive legacy of national leaders in mental health services and disparities research for target populations across the lifespan and a large network of community partners. The Hub is envisioned to collaborate with existing centers and divisions, while offering a new resource for research that applies advances in health informatics, data science and other computational methods. The Hub will accelerate the translation of data science and mental health care by infusing insights of individuals with lived expertise throughout the research lifecycle and bring research insights from the data science “bench” to the bedside to the community at large.