Serious mental illness and substance use disorders are common, chronic, and treatable illnesses. Yet an estimated 40% of adult Californians with serious mental illness and 90% of people with substance use disorder do not receive care for their conditions. In addition, significant disparities persist in access and outcomes by race, ethnicity, age, geography, and sexual and gender identity.

Care for behavioral health conditions — encompassing both serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders — sharply illustrates the profound inequities in the US health care system in access, quality, and outcomes. Barriers to care include limited provider networks and a lack of culturally and linguistically competent providers.

In behavioral health transformation, the focus is on enhancing access to care and ensuring that people with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders experience quality outcomes. CHCF supports work in the delivery system and through state and local policy change.

Learn more about the foundation’s work in these areas:

• Developing and implementing policy improvements in public behavioral health systems through research, analysis, and convenings
• Piloting and evaluating models of care that reflect community needs and provide easy access
• Growing the behavioral health workforce to improve access and to make it more representative of California’s diverse population
• Listening to people with serious behavioral health conditions — and learning from them — to understand how providers and systems can better respond to their needs
• Understanding the data that California currently has on behavioral health care, and examining how to improve measurement and reporting

CHCF also works on behavioral health in other areas. See our work on improving maternal mental health care.