Methodist Healthcare Ministries Portfolio Wide Evaluation Report

Sí Texas: Social Innovation for a Healthy South Texas (Sí Texas) is a project of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) Grantee Methodist Healthcare Ministries (MHM) of South Texas, Inc. The Sí Texas project team and a portfolio of eight subgrantee organizations from 12 medically underserved South Texas counties tested different approaches to integrated behavioral health (IBH) to improve the physical and mental health of low-income, Hispanic populations.

Study Goals:

The goal of the study was to examine the effectiveness of IBH programs on physical and mental health outcomes. The study looked at intervention participants compared to comparison participants during a 12-month study period. The study also examined the implementation of the Sí Texas program.

Research Questions:

The program presented both implementation and impact research questions. The research questions were:

• Implementation Questions:
  • To what extent did the Sí Texas subgrantees:
    • reach their intended target population?
    • implement their projects to fidelity?
      • What were the facilitators and barriers to adoption?
    • sites improve their level of IBH during the period of the Sí Texas initiative?
      • What components of IBH were most successfully achieved, and which were not?
  • How have organizational partnerships and connectedness changed over the Sí Texas period between subgrantees and community partners?
• Impact Questions:
  • After 12 months compared to participants who received the standard of care, did intervention participants who participated in an Sí Texas intervention:
    • reduce their depressive symptoms?
    • obtain significantly improved blood pressure readings?
    • obtain significantly improved HbA1c readings?
    • obtain significantly improved BMI scores?
  • Did the impact vary based on the population served?

Findings:

The evaluation found the following:

• The implementation evaluation for the portfolio of subgrantees' study helped to yield a better understanding of what the common facilitators and barriers are in implementing the IBH in the region across different settings and contexts.
• In the impact evaluation, results indicate that implementing an enhanced level of IBH improved physical and behavioral health:
  • Compared to the comparison participants, at 12 months, the intervention participants had significantly greater improvements:
    • in blood sugar
    • in depressive symptoms
  • One unexpected result of the study was that, after 12 months, intervention participants were more likely than comparison group participants to experience increases in body mass index (BMI) over time.

For more information, download the full report and report brief.