The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) supported two systematic reviews of the literature on integration by the Evidence-Based Practice Centers (EPC) before developing the Academy portal and its Literature Collection. The EPC findings were published as an evidence report/technology assessment entitled Integration of Mental Health/Substance Abuse and Primary Care (2008). Subsequent efforts highlighted the gaps in the evidence and offered a path forward for the field through the Future Research Needs for the Integration of Mental Health/Substance Abuse and Primary Care (2010) paper.
The Academy continues the work of those prior AHRQ studies. In addition to references from the AHRQ systematic reviews, the Collection includes the results of comprehensive literature searches conducted by the Academy’s research team to identify integration articles published since 2010. To augment the published literature offerings between comprehensive searches, The Academy identifies newly released articles by monitoring RSS feeds of journals in the integration field. The Academy has also researched literature published since 2000 on research gaps, including those identified in the prioritized list of gaps in the Future Research Needs report. Presently, the Academy Literature Collection comprises approximately 3,200 journal article references, with the NIAC's selection of key and foundational literature providing a framework for the modern integration literature.
The Academy Literature Collection enhances prior collections of integration resources by including grey literature references such as reports, dissertations, conference proceedings, and web resources. Grey literature is defined as materials that are not made available through traditional publishing avenues. Often, the information from unpublished resources can be limited and the risk of bias cannot be determined. Grey literature references are included in the Literature Collection to further the Academy’s mission to gather all sources of information on integration. The Academy features more than 500 grey literature references in the Literature Collection, which was last updated in September 2015.
All of this research is available via the View the Literature button above.