Access To Mental Health Care Increased But Not For Substance Use, While Disparities Remain

Access To Mental Health Care Increased But Not For Substance Use, While Disparities Remain

1. Timothy B. Creedon1,* and 
2. Benjamin Lê Cook2

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Timothy B. Creedon (tcreedon@brandeis.edu) is a doctoral student at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Massachusetts, and a research associate at the Health Equity Research Lab, Cambridge Health Alliance, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2. ²Benjamin Lê Cook is director of the Health Equity Research Lab at Cambridge Health Alliance and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, in Boston.

1. ↵*Corresponding author

Abstract

We assessed whether early implementation of Affordable Care Act (ACA) Medicaid expansion and state health insurance exchanges increased access to mental health and substance use treatment among those in need and whether these changes differed by racial/ethnic group. We found that mental health treatment rates increased significantly but found no evidence of a reduction in the wide racial/ethnic disparities in mental health treatment that preceded ACA expansion from 2005 to 2013.

• Mental Health/Substance Abuse
 
• Disparities
 
• Insurance Coverage < Insurance
• Health Reform