Lyda Hill Philanthropies and Lever for Change have announced the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute as the winner of the $10 million Lone Star Prize.

Launched in April 2020, the competition invited proposals for an innovative, scalable solution to one of three significant challenges confronting the state of Texas — improving health outcomes, protecting the environment, and boosting the state's workforce. Selected from more than a hundred and seventy applications, the Meadows Institute's Lone Star Depression Challenge will improve quality of life and mental healthcare access for communities across the state, with a focus on people of color, people with disabilities, and those living in poverty. Working with the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern, the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and The Path Forward for Mental Health and Substance Use, the institute will combine and expand three programs: an initiative that embeds early detection and treatment in primary care; a suite of digital solutions that enable community health workers, peer specialists, and others on the front lines to provide brief psychological treatments and connect people to additional care if needed; and a national initiative of business, government, nonprofits, health systems, and health payers to improve access to affordable, high-quality mental health and substance use services.

According to the Meadows Institute, while more than 1.5 million Texans suffer from depression each year, fewer than one in fifteen of them receive sufficient care to recover and nearly four thousand commit suicide each year. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem; symptoms of depression have increased fourfold and the number of people seriously considering suicide has doubled.

Lyda Philanthropies also will award grants totaling around $2 million to four finalists: JUST Community, Merit America, Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, and Texas Water Trade. All five finalists were previously awarded planning grants of $40,000 in January to work with a team of experts to strengthen, revise, and re-submit their proposed solutions.

"The Lone Star Prize will make possible the first-of-its kind, wide-scale expansion of three proven initiatives to improve the lives of Texans living with depression," said Meadows institute president and CEO Andy Keller. "Our partnership with the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern will catalyze an unprecedented statewide and national effort to put depression care in Texas on par with care for heart disease and cancer, freeing millions more Texans from the cloud of depression and saving hundreds of lives over the next five years."