New Head of Minority Fellowship Program Aims to Strengthen It

Nima Sheth, M.D., M.P.H., has spent the bulk of her career serving vulnerable and diverse patient populations, both domestically and internationally. Now, as she leads the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Minority Fellowship Program (MFP), she is hoping to build on what the program has already accomplished and improve mental health care and access for the populations she has devoted her career to helping.

SAMHSA

Sheth, a psychiatrist, was appointed the program’s officer in February. She is also the senior medical advisor with the Center for Mental Health Services at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), where she works under APA past President Anita Everett, M.D. Sheth has a broad clinical background, including serving as the medical director of the Georgetown University Hospital’s psychiatric partial hospitalization program and working with several community outpatient clinics focusing on minority and immigrant communities.

“The MFP is addressing a vital need in our communities by increasing the behavioral health workforce in an equitable way,” she told Psychiatric News. “My work has always been oriented toward helping to reduce barriers to accessing culturally relevant mental health care for populations of color. So when the position of government program officer became available, the leadership at the Center for Mental Health Services felt it would be a good fit for me given my background.”

The MFP is a grant program that awards funds to several organizations, including APA, which then select fellows who plan to improve mental health outcomes for minority communities. The goal is to help ensure the mental health workforce is representative of the communities it serves, strengthen the field’s capacity to work with underserved populations, reduce mental health disparities, and improve mental health outcomes for racial and ethnic minority populations. It further aims to educate the fellows so they can provide culturally competent mental health care, while also potentially teaching and conducting research to advance the field’s understanding of what underserved communities need.

“The MFP grantees are incredibly passionate and dedicated to this cause, and I’m hoping to build on the great work they’re already doing,” Sheth said. She said she is hoping to bolster not just APA’s MFP, but also those of the other five organizations funded by the grant: the American Psychological Association, American Nurses Association, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, Council on Social Work Education, and National Board of Certified Counselors. Her additional goals include advocating to expand the number of fellowship positions available, raising awareness of the issues and barriers that prevent some communities from accessing quality mental health care, and enhancing engagement with the communities that are being served by the MFP fellows.

Sheth also noted that she hopes to understand more about those populations that are continuing to experience gaps in access to quality mental health care. That means collecting better, more disaggregated data, such as by race, ethnicity, and gender, to create a clearer picture of the distinct needs of these communities and how to address them, she said.

The field of psychiatry especially benefits from the MFP, she said. “Psychiatry has traditionally lacked gender and racial diversity, but this is changing,” she said. “Programs like the MFP are really important to push the field forward and better address the need for increased access to and quality of mental health care for racial and ethnic minorities.” ■