About Us:

CommunityGMHResearch.org features interactive presentations, educational modules, and links to articles and other peer-reviewed resources that focus on the challenges of conducting research among community-residing older adults with mental illness. This Web site is designed to act as a virtual mentor to further evidence-based geriatric mental health practices by educating and supporting the careers of junior investigators, clinicians, graduate fellows, and undergraduate students who have an interest in geriatric mental health implementation research.

The presentations on this site are delivered and moderated by senior investigators in the field of geriatric mental health research. These highly experienced researchers share lessons learned from decades spent conducting community-based research, from how to write successful grant proposals to the challenges of working with agencies, nurses, and patients.

The overriding goal of CommunityGMHResearch.org is to encourage, educate, and support rising investigators who will develop innovative interventions that will improve mental health care for older adults currently served by home healthcare and for the rapidly-growing population of adults who will be in the future.




Stephen J. Bartels, MD, MS
Dr. Bartels is Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Community & Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and Director of the Centers for Senior Health at the Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Bartels’ research interests include topics such as healthcare management and rehabilitation for older persons with serious mental disorders, health promotion, integration of mental health and primary care, shared decision making, and evidence-based geriatric psychiatry.

Dr. Bartels has served in a variety of national leadership roles in the field of geriatrics. He was the expert consultant to the Older Adult Subcommittee of the President’s Commission on Mental Health. He has also testified before Congress and has participated in congressional briefings on aging and health policy, and on funding for research on mental disorders in older persons. He is the Scientific Co-Director for the Older Americans Substance Abuse and Mental Health Technical Assistance Center and serves on grant review committees for the National Institute of Health. He was selected as a Health Policy Expert Delegate to the December 2005 White House Conference on Aging.

Dr. Bartels is a Past President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry and was the Founding Chair of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. He was selected for the Health Services Research Senior Career Award by the American Psychiatric Association in 2003 and received the Mental Health and Aging Award by the American Society on Aging in 2005.


Martha L. Bruce, PhD, MPH
Dr. Bruce is Professor of Sociology in Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Clinical Epidemiology Program at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Associate Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry.

A sociologist and psychiatric epidemiologist, Dr. Bruce conducts community-based services research aimed at improving access to quality mental health among vulnerable older adults suffering from depression. Dr. Bruce is the Director of the Principal Research Core of the Cornell ACISR (P30) for Late Life Depression and Co-Director of the Ithaca-based Cornell Institute for Translation Research on Aging. She has recently completed an NIMH-funded Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Program award (R24) to work in partnership with community-based agencies to develop research aimed at improving the treatment and outcomes of depression in elderly patients receiving home health services. This project led to a depression care management intervention tailored for home health care that was piloted successfully in four home healthcare agencies across New York State. Dr. Bruce is now funded by an NIMH R01 to test the intervention in home healthcare agencies located in five states (FL, OK, IO, MI and NYC).

Dr. Bruce has been a standing member of an NIMH Study section since 2000 and currently chairs the NIMH Services Research in Nonspecialty Sector (SRNS). She is Principal Investigator of the NIMH/Cornell “Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health” (R25), a national program that provides mentoring and consultation to junior investigators. She is the current chair of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation.

Guest Presenters:

	Yeates Conwell, MD Professor of Psychiatry, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry; Co-Director, University of Rochester Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide (CSPS); Director, Senior Health and Research (SHARE) Alliance
	Mary Mittelman, DrPH Research Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine
	George T. Niederehe, PhD Chief, Geriatrics Research Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health
	Lawrence A. Palinkas, PhD Albert G. and Frances Lomas Feldman Professor of Social Policy and Health, School of Social Work, University of Southern California; Adjunct Professor, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California, San Diego
	Sarah I. Pratt, PhD Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School
	Peter V. Rabins, MD, MPH Psychiatrist, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
	Mark Snowden, MD, MPH Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington Medical School; Investigator UW Health Promotion Research Center and Center for Healthcare improvement for Addictions, Mental Illness and Medically Vulnerable Populations
	Steven H. Zarit, PhD Professor and Head, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University