My dissertation uses mixed methods to examine the role of state agencies on mental health services for individuals with dual diagnoses of intellectual or developmental disability (IDD) and mental illness.

Despite elevated prevalence of mental illness among people with IDD compared to the general population, those with dual diagnoses face significant barriers to mental health care. This is due, in part, to fragmented service delivery systems. In 2017, Texas reorganized their Health and Humans Services (HHS) system. The state's IDD agency was eliminated and the programmatic and regulatory responsibilities were moved into HHS, creating a department of IDD and Behavioral Health Services. One reason for this transformation was improving access to and quality of services by decreasing administrative burden, better integrating similar services and programs, and clarifying lines of accountability and performance measures.

My research examines the relationship between state agency organization and mental health services for people with dual IDD and mental illness diagnoses. In the first aim, I conduct in-depth interviews with state agency and advocacy organization leaders in states with separate mental health and IDD agencies to understand barriers and facilitators to coordinating services across agencies. In the following two aims, I combine in-depth interviews with Texas agency and advocacy organization leaders with augmented synthetic control analyses of Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data to assess the impacts of agency transformation on mental health service use and quality for people with dual diagnoses.

My dissertation research is funded by the National Institute for Mental Health (F31MH131311) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Institute for Health and Social Policy and Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities.

Stone EM, Tormohlen KN, McCourt AD, Schmid I, Stuart EA, Davis CS, Bicket MC, McGinty EE. (2022). Association between state opioid prescribing cap laws and receipt of opioid prescriptions among children and adolescents. JAMA Health Forum.

Haber NA, Clarke-Deelder E, Feller A, Smith ER, Salomon J, MacCormack-Gelles B, Stone EM, ... Stuart EA. (2022). Problems with Evidence Assessment in COVID-19 Health Policy Impact Evaluation (PEACHPIE): A systematic strength of methods review. BMJ Open.

Ward JA, Stone EM, Mui P, Resnick B. (2022). Pandemic-related workplace violence and its impact on US public health officials, March 2020 – January 2021. American Journal of Public Health.

Murphy KA, Daumit GL, McGinty EE, Stone EM, Kennedy-Hendricks A. (2021). Predictors of cancer screening among Black and White Maryland Medicaid enrollees with serious mental illness. Psycho-oncology.

Stone EM, Kennedy-Henricks A, Barry CL, Bachhuber MA, McGinty EE. (2021). The role of stigma in U.S. primary care physicians’ treatment of opioid use disorder. Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

A complete list of publications is available here.