Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY)

Overview

The Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Center program aims to support innovative research ideas and transdisciplinary collaborations that could transform the care of children, adolescents, and adults with severe psychiatric disorders.

Initiated by the NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research, these Centers conduct research aimed at increasing the effectiveness of existing interventions; improving the delivery and quality of evidence-based services; and accelerating the implementation and continuous improvement of new practices in diverse, real-world health care settings.

By design, ALACRITY Centers focus on research with potential for near-term impact and incorporate features that are intended to speed the translation of research into practice, including:

• Practice-based infrastructure that leverages clinical practice settings as incubators for new research ideas and as laboratories for nimbly refining and testing interventions and service delivery strategies;
• Transdisciplinary research teams that include clinical and mental health services researchers and incorporate new insights and emerging technologies from experts in areas such as behavioral economics, health information and communications technology, and health systems engineering; and
• A deployment-focused approach that takes into account the perspective of broad stakeholders (including patients, families, providers, and key administrators) to yield interventions and service strategies that are relevant and can be more rapidly integrated into practice.

NIMH-Supported ALACRITY Centers

NIMH currently supports eight research centers around the country that span a variety of target populations and practice settings; cover a range of science, spanning intervention refinement and optimization through implementation and services research; and incorporate a variety of transdisciplinary collaborations, including:

• ASSIST (Accelerator Strategies in States to Improve System Transformations Affecting Children, Youth and Families)
• Center for Enhancing Triage and Utilization for Depression and Emergency Suicidality (ETUDES) in Pediatric Primary Care
• ALACRITY for Late and Mid-Life Mood Disorders
• ALACRITY Center for Psychosocial Interventions Research
• Transforming Mental Health Delivery Through Behavioral Economics and Implementation Science
• Center to Accelerate Translation of Interventions to Decrease Premature Mortality in Severe Mental Illness
• Laboratory for Early Psychosis Research (LEAP)
• Optimizing and Personalizing Interventions for Schizophrenia Across the Lifespan (OPAL)

Learn More

For additional information on ALACRITY, please contact Joel Sherrill, Ph.D., Deputy Director, NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research, at jsherril@mail.nih.gov.

Additional Resources

• NIMH Science News: Mental Health Research Centers Forge Collaborations with ALACRITY
• Advanced Laboratories for Acceleratingthe Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers (P50 Clinical Trial Optional)
• FAQs for Applicants to Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers (P50 Clinical Trial Optional)