Research

Integrating behavioral health services into primary care settings not only expands treatment capacity in the mental health workforce but also provides an entry point for people who might otherwise struggle to access care.

Competency evaluation and restoration services are critical to ensuring a person’s due process rights are protected. As Oklahoma and other states face lawsuits over lengthy waitlists for competency restoration services, it’s important to understand how these processes work in Oklahoma.

In this analysis, we propose solutions to ensure Oklahomans with IDD have the same access to mental health treatment as any other patient, including better training of clinicians and improved coordination of services.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities and co-occurring mental health challenges face obstacles that make it difficult to access the behavioral health care they need. In this paper, we examine barriers to care such as stigma, a lack of training among providers, and disconnected community supports.

Our research finds that Oklahoma’s PACT teams serve less than half the number of people who would benefit from and be eligible for these services.

As the first state to fully transition to the CCBHC model, Oklahoma has been at the forefront of embracing change to better deliver community mental health care to its residents.

Policymakers have realistic options for addressing the state's most pressing behavioral health workforce challenges. With roughly $30 million in targeted funding and policy initiatives, Oklahoma can significantly strengthen workforce pipelines to meet the state’s growing need for behavioral health professionals.

Among Oklahoma’s non-prescribing behavioral health clinicians, psychologists have the greatest gap between supply and demand, meeting only 37% of the state’s estimated need. Without investments in the pipeline of future psychologists, Oklahoma will continue to struggle meeting residents' needs into the next decade.

In this data snapshot, we highlight national prevalence rates of mental health conditions among U.S. college students as well as state rates of alcohol and substance use among college-age Oklahomans.

Understanding the licensure process for behavioral health professionals is an important starting point for policy solutions that increase access to care for Oklahomans with mental health and substance use treatment needs.