Doro Mind Receives NIH Grant to Address the Intersection of Substance Use and Serious Mental Illness

Doro Mind has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to develop a digital platform targeting the relationship between substance use and serious mental illness. This post explains what we're building and why.

The challenge of co-occurring substance use and serious mental illness

The relationship between substance use and serious mental illness (SMI) is one of the most consequential and least addressed challenges in behavioral health. Co-occurring substance use and SMI are common, clinically complex, and still largely managed through fragmented systems rather than integrated care, despite decades of evidence pointing toward better approaches (1), (2).

The research is clear: substance use can worsen the course of serious mental illness, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Cannabis use in particular has been associated with increased psychosis risk and earlier onset of psychotic disorders in vulnerable individuals. Stimulant use can precipitate or intensify manic symptoms, and alcohol use can complicate mood stability and medication adherence (1), (3).

Behavioral health has largely continued to treat substance use and serious mental illness as separate clinical problems, handled by separate systems, separate providers, and separate frameworks. A patient with a first-episode psychosis and a cannabis use history may see a psychiatrist for the former and be referred elsewhere for the latter, if the latter is addressed at all (1), (2).

For families navigating SMI, this fragmentation is not an abstraction. It is a daily reality that slows recovery, complicates care decisions, and leaves significant clinical territory unaddressed (1).

What Doro Mind is building

Doro Mind has been awarded a grant from NIH to build a digital platform that addresses the intersection of substance use and serious mental illness in an integrated, evidence-informed way.

The platform is designed to complement Doro Care, our comprehensive psychiatric care model for individuals living with serious mental illness, by creating structured, clinically grounded pathways for understanding and addressing substance use as part of the broader treatment picture. Rather than treating it as a separate referral pathway, we are building tools that bring substance use assessment, psychoeducation, and support into the same care environment as psychiatric treatment (2), (3).

Initially our focus will be on foundational research and platform development. We will be sharing more as the work progresses.

Why this matters for Doro Mind members and families

At Doro, we have always believed that meaningful recovery, real life and not just symptom management, requires treating the whole person and family. For many of the individuals we serve, substance use is part of that picture. Addressing it in a separate system, or not addressing it at all, is not consistent with the level of care we believe every member deserves (1), (2).

This grant reflects something we have believed since the beginning: that the distance between what is possible in psychiatric care and what most families actually receive is not fixed. Better is achievable, and it requires building care models that reflect how these conditions actually interact (2), (3).

For too long, families have been asked to navigate two separate systems for what is, clinically, one interconnected challenge. This grant gives us the opportunity to build something that reflects how serious mental illness actually works and how care should actually be delivered. We are grateful to NIDA for recognizing the urgency of this work.

— Mimi Liu, Co-Founder, Doro Mind

About Doro Mind

Doro Mind provides comprehensive psychiatric care for individuals and families living with serious mental illness, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and related conditions. Our flagship service, Doro Care, combines expert medication management, dedicated care coordination, and family support under integrated clinical leadership. Doro Care is currently available in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and California.

To learn more or refer a patient, visit doromind.com.

Visit NIH and NIDA to learn more about these organizations and their mission.

References

1. 1Substance Use and Concurrent Disorders: Current Context and the Path Forward. PMC/National Institutes of Health, 2024.
2. 2Dual Diagnosis. Treatment Advocacy Center, 2024.
3. 3Canady, V.A. Managing substance use for clients with serious mental illnesses. Mental Health Weekly / ScienceDirect, 2021.