Jessica Coker

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Arkansas Attorney General Provides $600,000 Grant to Support Women’s Mental Health Fellowship

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By Tim Taylor

LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has received a $600,000 grant from Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin to support a women’s mental health fellowship in an effort to address the impact of the opioid epidemic on women and to help reduce the state’s maternal mortality rate.

The grant will be used to train a new generation of psychiatrists in the treatment of women with opioid use disorder and other psychiatric conditions, specifically during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

The Women’s Mental Health Program, based in the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute, has the state’s only three psychiatrists specializing in women’s mental health. The program recorded 3,758 patient visits between January 2023 and August 2024, 40% of which were for substance use disorders.

Arkansas Attorney General Provides $600,000 Grant to Support Women’s Mental Health Fellowship

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Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas Awards UAMS 3 Grants To Improve Mental Health Treatment

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By Tim Taylor

LITTLE ROCK — The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) recently received three grants from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas aimed at strengthening programs treating Arkansans with mental illness.

Jessica Coker, M.D., an associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is the principal investigator in MAPS (Mental Health and Addiction Peer Support), a peer-support model for co-occurring substance use disorders within acute psychiatric units.

Supported by a $122,389 grant from the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas, Coker, along with Abigail Richison, M.D., will integrate a peer navigator assigned to the inpatient units at the UAMS Psychiatric Research Institute (PRI). The peer navigator will work specifically with patients dealing with substance use disorders.

https://news.uams.edu/2023/01/26/blue-you-foundation-for-a-healthier-arkansas-awards-uams-3-grants-to-improve-mental-health-treatment/