Updates from the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED)

· by · in NCEED. ·

By Courtenay Pierce, Research Assistant for NCEED

It’s hard to believe, but October 1st marked the beginning of NCEED’s 3rd year. Those of you that have been with us since the beginning will recall that the first year was dedicated to establishing our website, building important relationships with key stakeholder groups, and developing initial programming. The second year allowed us to launch our own suite of trainings and refine our Resource Library in an effort to expand our reach to frontline healthcare providers. As we kick off NCEED’s 3rd year, we want to bring you up to speed on several important developments:

  • During the month of June, NCEED supported the launch of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) and Deloitte Access Economics’ report on the social and economic costs of eating disorders in the United States. The report details recent estimates on the prevalence of eating disorders and the cost associated with their treatment (including cost due to lost productivity and caregiving). With 28 million Americans struggling with these conditions at some point in their lifetime and a $64.5 billion annual price tag, the services provided by NCEED remain crucial.
  • NCEED is thrilled to announce that we have contracted with Charge Ahead Marketing to manage public relations, marketing, and communications. By partnering with Charge Ahead, NCEED can dramatically expand its reach and networking capability, and fulfill its mission of providing education and training to healthcare providers, while promoting public awareness of eating disorders and eating disorder treatment.
  • In other exciting news and perhaps one of our most notable achievements to date, NCEED was awarded a $300,000 supplement from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to develop a Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment for Eating Disorders (SBIRT-ED) platform for primary care providers and other frontline providers. SBIRT-ED will be modeled after SBIRT, which was originally designed for substance use disorders and has more recently been adapted to depression and anxiety. As the name suggests, SBIRT-ED will give providers the tools they need to screen patients for eating disorders, provide brief interventions that increase awareness and enhance motivation for treatment, and refer at-risk patients to specialty treatment. Development of this platform will fill a critical gap that exists for many primary care providers and other frontline clinicians.
  • Coming soon: We plan to create infographics and summaries of peer-reviewed articles. NCEED recognizes that not everyone has access to eating disorder research—or the time to read each article even if access is available! Thus, we will begin to develop infographics and summaries of important articles to ensure broad dissemination of the science to healthcare providers and the public. Our hope is that these more easily digestible documents will increase the impact of leading-edge research.

We are excited about NCEED’s recent advancements, and we look forward to sharing updates as additional progress is made. Stay tuned for upcoming events, new training opportunities, and website developments by signing up for our newsletter at www.nceedus.org!