Thanks to President Obama's Affordable Care Act, Integrated Care has become a major priority within the healthcare industry.

But what is integrated care? How does it affect children, families, and older adults?

And what are patient-centered medical homes? In this episode, we break down the ins and outs

of integrated care with a psychologist who is a leading researcher on integrated care. I'm Audrey

Hamilton, and this is speaking of psychology.

Thank you. I'm Audrey Hamilton and this is speaking of psychology. Joan Asarno is director of the Youth Stress and Mood Program and a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA. Her research

focuses on strategies for improving health and mental health and youth with an emphasis on suicide

prevention and depression. She was also on the American Psychological Association's Task Force on

Patient-Centered Medical Homes. Welcome, Dr. Arsarno. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

Your primary area of research focuses on mental health care and prevention for children and

teenagers. You've also been publishing research on the effect collaborative care settings have on

these children. Can you talk about that? I would be happy to. You know, in the United States,

we can obtain outstanding medical care, and we can obtain outstanding care for behavioral health

problems, a broad term that we use to refer to mental health and substance abuse problems and

health risk behaviors. We can get the best mental health and substance abuse problems and health risk behaviors. We can get the best mental health

and substance abuse care in the world in the United States, but where we have the problems is in

getting that care to people. From the perspective of kids in mental health, we have some really

major problems. First of all, there are very high rates of mental health

problems among our kids. Estimates for adolescents indicate that 40% of our adolescents suffer

for mental health or substance use disorders within any year. And in younger kids,

it's one out of eight kids who are estimated to suffer

from mental health disorders during a year. This translates to about 16 million children

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