Partnership Inquiry Guide
Mental Health America’s Center for Research and Innovation (CRI) programs work with data from over 6 million users each year to understand community trends on mental illness, trauma, disparity, and access to supports. Though we receive many inquiries, the CRI is prioritizing projects that ensure meaningful and symbiotic collaboration.
- Researching the links between mental health and epidemiology, psychometrics, and disparities, especially for marginalized populations.
- Closing accessibility gaps by developing mental health resources including the creation of person-centered mental health education and research and the creation of free user-driven digital technology.
- Developing online digital single-session interventions designed to help improve mental health outcomes by increasing knowledge and skills while someone may not be in treatment.
- Engaging in research that meaningfully includes individuals with lived experiences.
- Including MHA in the design, implementation, and dissemination of the research project.
- Shared resources (staff and finance) between collaborating researchers and MHA. This often means submitting a grant jointly.
- Our research is driven by information gathered from the MHA Screening program, a collection of screening tools for various mental health conditions. Visit mhascreening.org to see a list of screens available.
- Data is limited to those within the U.S. who take screens.
- MHA’s screening population is a help-seeking population, so most who visit screen positive for a mental health condition. Screeners also tend to be younger, female, and representative of racial and ethnic diversity.
- A data transfer use agreement (DTUA) is required for any partnership where data will be transferred from MHA to a university or research partner. Please be aware that the need for a DTUA may impact project timelines. MHA does not pass on any identifiable information as part of our research projects.
- Contact information of the main researchers/points of contact for your project. At minimum, please CC these individuals.
- An aims page (if available) OR brief paragraph overview of your project, addressing the following questions:
- What populations are you trying to reach or recruit? What’s the sample size needed?
- What type of data do you need? (i.e., which screens, time period, demographic information, etc.)
- Who is funding your project or who might you be seeking funding from? (i.e., NIMH, PCORI, SAMHSA, unfunded etc.)
- What’s the timeline for this project?
- How do you envision MHA can participate in this collaboration in a meaningful and symbiotic way?
- An expression of interest, if any, on one of our current projects. We are in active collaborations with organizations, nonprofits, and universities on projects to create digital platforms, online interventions, campaigns, mapping projects, and resources for various mental health conditions and outcomes. Check out our research for more information.
If you're interested in collaborating, you can fill out the Partnership Request form or email klucas@mhanational.org.