SESSION: Making Psychosocial Treatment Available to Older Adults

BIO:

Patricia A. Areán is a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the University of Washington School of Medicine and a licensed clinical psychologist. For the past 25 years she has been actively researching the efficacy, effectiveness and implementation of behavioral interventions for depression in a variety of patient populations, including older adults, low-income and ethnic minority populations in non-mental health settings such as senior services, public sector community health, primary care medicine, and digital platforms.

Dr. Areán has served on the American Psychological Association’s Advisory Board for Treatment Guideline Development, NIMH Advisory Council and the IOM workgroup and report: Psychosocial Interventions for Mental and Substance Use Disorders: A Framework for Establishing Evidence-Based Standards. She is the director of the NIMH ALACRITY Center to identifying targets for intervention modification to address problems with capacity, reach and quality of psychosocial interventions and among her clinical research, she completed a large scale, fully remote randomized clinical trial comparing three different mood apps for managing depression.

Dr. Areán has won awards for the research and implementation work with safety net clinics, and under-served communities.