Adolescent and Young Adult Behavioral Health CoIIN
Since 2019, the National Improvement Partnership Network (NIPN) and Association of Maternal Child Health Programs (AMCHP) work together with clinical providers and public health systems to improve care of and services for AYA with depression.
Project Aim
Achieve an 80% screening rate for a major depressive episode of patients ages 12-25 using an age-appropriate standardized tool, with documentation of a follow-up plan if the screen is positive.
The AYA-BH CoIIN uses the COIN (Collaborative Innovation Networks) method developed by Peter Gloor at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. We added another “I” for “improvement” to our acronym, expanding the concept for our context through numerous MCHB-supported CoIINs that bring together federal, state, and local leaders to tackle common problems.
The AYA-BH CoIIN has two arms, working nationally and jointly to improve depression screening and follow-up within a Quality Improvement Capacity Building framework.
- The public health arm (coordinated by AMCHP) focuses on improving State- and system-level policies and practices to support integration of behavioral health in primary care.
- The clinical arm (coordinated by NIPN) participates in the monthly, online learning collaborative, “Addressing Adolescent and Young Adult Depression in Primary Care.”

Participants
The AYA-BH CoIIN has two consecutive cohorts, each with five states. The public health arm of the CoIIN is active for 18 months and the primary care arm runs in parallel for 9 months.
Cohort 1 (duration extended due to the COVID-19 pandemic)
- Public Health arm: July 2019-June 2021
- Primary Care arm: February 2019-March 2021
Cohort 2
- Public Health arm: July 2021-December 2022
- Primary Care arm: October 2021-June 2022

Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Capacity Building Program
The AYA-BH CoIIN is an activity of the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Capacity Building Program (AYAH-NCBP), led by the University of California (UCSF), with three collaborators: AMCHP, NIPN, and the State Adolescent Health Resource Center (SAHRC). The AYAH-NCBP expands the initial scope of work of these partners, who in 2014, established the Adolescent and Young Adult Health National Resource Center (AYAH-NRC). This collaboration concentrates our efforts to strengthen the abilities of State Title V MCH Programs, as well as public health and clinical health professionals, to better serve adolescent populations (ages 10-25).
With funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal Child Health Bureau (HRSA-MCHB), the purpose of the AYAH-NCBP is to improve the health of adolescents and young adults by strengthening the capacity of state maternal and child health (MCH) programs and their clinical partners to address the needs of these population groups.
Specifically, the AYAH-NCBP is working to build State capacity to:
- Increase the adolescent well visit rate
- Integrate strategies related to behavioral health and trauma-informed care into adolescent well visits-focused efforts
- Address healthcare needs of young adults as a distinct population
- Improve Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) rates among AYAs enrolled in Medicaid
- Increase the rate of depression screening in all clinical settings