Executive Summary
Before COVID-19, depression held 1.5 million Texans in its grip each year and suicide had become the third leading cause of death. COVID-19 is accelerating diseases of despair, laying bare broader inequities across race, ethnicity, and income. Over 3,000 Texans die each year from suicide, and depression costs billions in lost productivity, plus the human and economic burdens of co-morbid disease such as diabetes and heart disease. The Lone Star Depression Challenge scales three existing initiatives statewide: (1) The Cloudbreak Initiative driving primary care-based clinical solutions across leading health systems; (2) The Path Forward to help Texas businesses purchase better care; and (3) EMPOWER to augment our workforce with culture-spanning community health workers. These strategies transformed care for heart disease and cancer over the last two decades, and they will save thousands of lives and improve health outcomes for hundreds of thousands if you join us in meeting the Challenge.
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Accomplishments
The Meadows Institute successfully completed the second year of the Lone Star Depression Challenge (LSDC), helping end untreated depression in Texas through early detection and treatment. Our successes include: the expansion of the Cloudbreak Initiative, which seeks to provide care for untreated depression in the same manner as we do heart disease and other illnesses, to 24 of the largest health systems in the state collectively serving 9.8 million individuals; the cultural and linguistic adaptation of EMPOWER, which uses brief psychological therapies to prevent and care for a range of common mental health and substance use problems, into Spanish, and the deployment of a second cadre of EMPOWER Community Health Workers in Texas; and the development of a depression management toolkit for employers. The LSDC helped spur additional funding for our efforts including more than $3 million from foundations and $7 million in federal funds to further accelerate our efforts.
