Gaps in Mental Health in Orange County

Gaps in Mental Health Care in Orange County

WRITTEN BY ARUNIMA KAPOOR

Created in the context of a global pandemic and increasing mental health needs, the clinical area in the Department of Psychological Science at UCI represents the very first PhD program in clinical psychology in Orange County. Our program aims to identify and address some of the gaps in mental health care in Orange County. Currently, approximately 1 in 6 people in Orange County report mental health concerns and about 7% of Orange County adults report serious psychological distress. While the entire country experienced a surge in mental health concerns during the pandemic, Orange County specifically has been experiencing higher hospitalizations due to substance use problems compared to the majority of other counties in California as well as an increase in suicide rates over the past decade. Data from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) indicates that only about half of the adults in Orange County who need mental or behavioral health services receive them, a worse ratio than the majority of Californian counties.

The number of mental health providers is currently also decreasing. The Healthforce Centre at UCSF released a research report in 2018 examining California’s Current and Future Behavioral Health Workforce and found that the number of mental health providers is

""Only about half of the adults in Orange County who need mental or behavioral health services receive them. "

projected to decline over the next decade, with demand exceeding supply by about 40% by 2028. Moreover, within the next decade, many behavioral health professionals will reach retirement age, further exacerbating the difference between demand and supply for clinical psychologists in California.

In 2018, the OC Health Care Agency and UC San Diego created a Needs and Gaps Analysis Report detailing the current state of mental health needs in Orange County. Using numerous focus groups with key stakeholder organizations and minority groups in Orange County, their report revealed substantial barriers to accessing mental health services at the policy, agency, and individual levels. Lack of funding for community mental health services, fragmentation of the system of care, lack of information about mental health, and stigma were some of the important obstacles identified. Some of these barriers have led to even fewer people receiving care who need it in Orange County compared to many other counties in California.

Not only is access limited by such barriers, but Orange County also has fewer actively licensed psychologists and psychiatrists than the average county in California. While there are 70.7 psychologist per 100K population in the Greater Bay Area and 45.9 per 100K in Los Angeles, there are only 38.6 per 100K in Orange County. Part of the reason for fewer clinicians in Orange County may be that there are fewer clinical or counseling graduate programs than the average in California; Orange County currently produces fewer doctoral level clinical or counseling psychology graduates than most regions, which may be contributing to longer wait times for people to enter care, and restricted access to mental health care treatment that is currently being reported.

Training more doctoral level clinical psychologists in California, and Orange County specifically, is an important step toward meeting local mental health needs. We hope that our program will begin to bridge some of the gaps in access to care by training clinical psychologists at the Ph.D. level. The launch of the clinical area within the Department of Psychological Science at UCI aims to address some of these unmet needs, improve evidencebased practice, and integrate the latest advances in behavioral medicine, psychiatry, and integrative medicine into mental health care in Orange County. As the department grows and develops, we aim to continue working towards improving mental health care in Orange County and California.