From Affective Illness to Recovery: Student Access to Rapid Treatment (FAIR START)

Although there were substantial advances in bipolar disorder pharmacotherapy in the 2000s, and most of these medications are now available in less expensive generic formulations, in 2015 access to timely accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment remains limited. One important limitation of such access is the need for more expensive health insurance required by academic medical centers that have expert providers to diagnose and treat bipolar disorder – this not only results in substantive healthcare access disparities, but by decreasing ethnic/racial and socioeconomic diversity in academic clinics, limits the generalizability of their research findings.

The From Affective Illness to Recovery: Student Access to Rapid Treatment (FAIR START) program strives to address these challenges by enhancing access to see academic medical center expert clinical research providers to diagnose and treat bipolar disorder for individuals lacking more expensive health insurance.

The FAIR START program is spearheaded by Dr. Shefali Miller, MD, MA, Chief of the Stanford University Bipolar Disorders Clinic. Young adult (i.e., age 18 to 28 years) students with mood disorders from local community colleges may be eligible to participate. To determine eligibility, referred students will undergo an initial phone screen with the research coordinator (Lauren Chang, BA), and if appropriate for the program will be referred for an initial evaluation, and if indicated, subsequent treatment. All in-person visits will occur at the Stanford University Bipolar Disorders Clinic. 

If you or someone you know would like to learn more about the program, please contact Lauren Chang at (650) 498-8459 or Laurensc@stanford.edu.