UAMS Awarded $600,000 Grant to Establish Women’s Mental Health Fellowship Addressing Opioid Crisis
Little Rock, AR – The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) announced Wednesday its receipt of a $600,000 grant from Attorney General Tim Griffin aimed at funding a groundbreaking women’s mental health fellowship. This initiative seeks to tackle the pervasive impact of the opioid epidemic on women and aims to reduce the state’s alarmingly high maternal mortality rate.
The grant, sourced from opioid lawsuit settlement funds, will empower the training of psychiatrists to more effectively treat women suffering from opioid addiction and related psychiatric disorders, particularly during the critical pregnancy and postpartum phases. Dr. Jessica Coker, medical director at the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute, emphasized the necessity of specialized training in understanding the hormonal fluctuations that can exacerbate mood disorders during these vulnerable periods.
UAMS’s Women’s Mental Health Program, which has been operational since July, is currently home to Arkansas’s only three psychiatrists specializing in women’s mental health. From January to August 2023, the program recorded over 3,700 patient visits, with 40% related to substance use disorders.
Mirroring national trends, mental health conditions—including drug overdoses and suicides—rank among the leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths. The CDC indicates that Arkansas bears a maternal mortality rate of 38.3 deaths per 100,000 births, the fourth highest in the nation between 2018 and 2022.
Fellows in the Women’s Mental Health Program will undergo training across UAMS’s psychiatric and obstetric clinics, as well as in one of the nation’s five specialized inpatient women’s psychiatric units. Attorney General Griffin voiced his support for the initiative, declaring it a critical step in addressing opioid abuse effectively.
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