It is estimated that as many as 65,000 people in El Paso and Juárez suffer from OCD, and a UTEP-led team of health professionals is seeking to shed more light on the problem. Olson said the research project will compare two groups of people — those who are diagnosed with OCD and another group of people who exhibit symptoms but were not diagnosed — over the course of the two-year study. Oriana Perez, a graduate student at the UTEP College of Health Sciences who is assisting with the border mental health study, said the project has run into problems in getting enough people to volunteer for the study. Based on the shortage of resources to treat people in the El Paso-Juárez region, the research team, which includes experts from Juárez and Mexico City, suggests that a multifamily group treatment may be the best approach to use. A team of academics and graduate students from the University of Texas at El Paso and the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez are seeking volunteers for a study on obsessive-compulsive disorder in the border region. The disorder is genetic, and it is estimated that up to 20,000 people in El Paso and 45,000 people in Juárez have it. read more

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