ANN ARBOR, MI - Nearly two years ago, the University of Michigan Health System was the first in the nation to establish a comprehensive center devoted to illnesses that affect 18 million Americans every year and have been deemed by the World Health Organization as the most disabling disorders in the world – depression and bipolar disorder.

Today, the U-M Regents approved a $38 million building project that will again help UMHS to lead the way in expanding the treatment, research and education needed to counteract depressive illnesses in the United States.

This project will lead to construction of the nation’s first Depression Center. The new facility will also incorporate Ambulatory Psychiatry and Substance Abuse programs. Today's vote also authorized the selection of Detroit-based architectural firm Albert Kahn Associates for the project design.

Construction of the new state-of-the-art clinical facility will be funded in part by $12.5 million in gifts to the U-M Depression Center. Additionally, the center’s researchers have submitted a federal National Institute of Health grant request to aid funding of research components of the building project.

The three-level, 106,500 gross square-foot clinical facility will include 54,200 square feet dedicated to outpatient research projects, 40,000 square feet for adult and child clinics and patient consult rooms, and 12,300 square feet for building support. It will connect to the southwest side of the existing U-M East Ann Arbor Health Center on Plymouth Road in Ann Arbor. The project will also add 440 parking spaces for patients, faculty and staff. Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2004, and the facility is set to be open for patient use in 2006.

“By building a Depression Center that emphasizes research strategies and collaboration with other health professionals we can identify and treat depression and bipolar disorder earlier and more effectively,” says John F. Greden, M.D., the center’s executive director. “With the center, we’ve also created one of the best weapons to counteract the remaining stigma surrounding depressive illnesses and related disorders. We want the millions of Americans who are suffering to feel comfortable in seeking care and optimal treatments.

“Centers of Excellence, such as the U-M Depression Center, accelerate progress by maximizing multidisciplinary research, minimizing clinical fragmentation, integrating care, and translating advances into communities,” he notes.

With the all-in-one design of the new Depression Center and Ambulatory Psychiatry facility, more patients suffering from depression and related bipolar and anxiety disorders will be able to receive coordinated care from multidisciplinary U-M clinical teams. Since depression tends to occur in recurrent episodes across a life span, the facility will provide an environment that integrates child, adolescent, adult and geriatric programs. The project will also enable improved integration of treatment for outpatients with other psychiatric conditions, such as anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, substance use and attention deficit disorders.

The new clinical facility will create an inviting and relaxed atmosphere through its use of natural light, open space and an easy-to-navigate layout. Greden has made it a goal to have the facility design represent the antithesis of depression. The building plans also include an auditorium for use by patients, visitors, faculty, staff, and community advocacy organizations.

By bringing together and expanding the University’s wide range of coordinated patient care services and its extensive, world-class clinical research efforts, the new facility will increase research, education, training for health care professionals and community members. In all, it will allow U-M to advance the field of depression and related disorders on all fronts.

With 28,000 square feet of new research space, the new facility will further expand and integrate multidisciplinary contributions from the investigators within the eight schools, colleges and institutions across the University that participate in the center’s research and education efforts. These include the U-M Medical School departments of Family Medicine, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics, Radiology, Internal Medicine, Anesthesiology, Psychiatry, Geriatrics, Cancer and Cardiology; Women’s Health, the Mental Health Research Institute, Institute for Social Research and the Life Sciences Institute; the college of Literature, Science and the Arts; schools of Public Health, Social Work, Pharmacy, Dentistry and Nursing; and the Division of Kinesiology.

The U-M Depression Center took its first step toward advancing treatment, research and education of depression in 2001, when the Regents established it as the nation’s first comprehensive center devoted to depressive illnesses. Modeled after successful centers in the cancer and cardiovascular fields, the U-M designed its Depression Center to improve research and provide multidisciplinary treatment of depression.

Since its establishment, the Depression Center has worked to not only identify and treat patients earlier, but to educate them by sponsoring ongoing depression screening events, and bringing national attention to issues such as depression on college campuses and the effects of maternal stress and depression on infants.

A national advisory board of 20 prominent individuals aids the Depression Center. The board consists of nationally recognized leaders, from noted newsman Mike Wallace to National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon, former Surgeon General Antonia Novello and Rhode Island and Michigan congressmen Patrick Kennedy and Joseph Knollenberg, respectively. Board members have demonstrated expertise in public education, public policy, health care delivery, public advocacy and business.

Today, as many as one in five women and one in eight men are at high risk of experiencing depression sometime in their lives, regardless of race or socioeconomic status. Recent advances in neuroscience, new medications and specialized counseling therapies have made depression quite treatable. But only about 10 percent of all people with depression receive adequate treatment, due to social stigma, lack of symptom awareness, poor diagnosis, incomplete treatment regimens and inability to pay.

For more information on the U-M Depression Center, visit www.depressioncenter.org.

Fact Sheet:
U-M Depression Center, depressive illnesses and psychiatric disorders

Written by: Krista Hopson

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