Community-based participatory development of a community health worker mental health outreach role to extend collaborative care in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Objectives: The REACH NOLA Mental Health Infrastructure and Training Project (MHIT) aimed to reduce disparities in access to and quality of services for depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in post-Katrina New Orleans by developing a mental health outreach role for community health workers (CHWs) and case managers as a complement to the collaborative care model for depression treatment.

Intervention: Community agency leaders, academics, healthcare organizations, and CHWs engaged in a community participatory process to develop a CHW training program.

Design: A review of qualitative data including semi-structured interviews, project team conference calls, email strings, and meeting minutes was conducted to document CHW input into training and responses to implementation.

Building community resilience through mental health infrastructure and training in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Objective: To describe a disaster recovery model focused on developing mental health services and capacity-building within a disparities-focused, community-academic participatory partnership framework.

Design: Community-based participatory, partnered training and services delivery intervention in a post-disaster setting.

Setting: Post-Katrina Greater New Orleans community.