Despite decades of research, recognition and treatment of mental illness and its co-morbidities still remain a significant public health problem in the United States. Ethnic minorities are identified as a population that is vulnerable to mental health disparities and face unique challenges pertaining to mental health care. Psychiatric illness is associated with great physical, emotional, functional, and societal burden. The primary health care setting may be a promising venue for screening, assessment, and treatment of mental illnesses for ethnic minority populations. We propose a comprehensive, innovative, culturally centered integrated care model to address the complexities within the health care system, from the individual level, that includes provider and patient factors, to the system level, which include practice culture and system functionality issues. Our multi-disciplinary investigative team acknowledges the importance of providing culturally tailored integrative healthcare to holistically concentrate on physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among ethnic minorities in a primary care setting. It is our intention that the proposed model will be useful for health practitioners, contribute to the reduction of mental health disparities, and promote better mental health and well-being for ethnic minority individuals, families, and communities.

As a Psychiatrist working at Veterans Affairs Hospital, I have seen many patients with co existence of Obstructive Sleep Apnea and PTSD. As we know sleep disturbances are very common in combat veterans with PTSD, most common of which are nightmares and insomnia. There have been studies showing that people with OSA can have worsening of PTSD but PTSD is not found to be deleterious for OSA. CPAP is the treatment of choice for OSA and it has been found that people who start using CPAP machine have less occurance of nightmares and they sleep better. There is considerable ratio of veterans seen in my practice who do not use CPAP despite being prescribed for it, I compared the veterans with OSA who use CPAP mahcine versus those who do not use CPAP machine. Patient's subjective reporting of improvement in PTSD symptoms in those who use CPAP machine will be compared to those who do not use CPAP machine and continued to have PTSD symptoms.