From Awareness to Recovery: How Florida Is Transforming Veteran Brain Health
In one year (July 2025 – June 2026), The Mac Parkman Foundation and the Florida Department of Veterans' Affairs built a coordinated, statewide model connecting veterans to individualized brain health care. It exceeded every contract goal, reached more than 2.4 million veterans and family members, and helped veterans reclaim their sleep, their relationships and their sense of hope.
Veterans coordinated into care
3.4× the goal of 100
Of eligible veterans received treatment
81 of 100 eligible; 258 more referred to partners
Provider & VSO trainings
5.6× the goal of 25
"I cannot believe how great I feel. Have not felt like this in over a decade. I ran for the first time in years."Marine Corps Veteran, Tampa, FL
Research Projects
Today, millions of children play contact sports while their brains are in critical phases of development. It is now known that long-term exposure of a child's brain to subconcussive trauma or repeated head injuries leads to brain damage linked to mental illness, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, impulsivity and suicidality.
More attention has focused on Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with repeated traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), including concussions and repeated blows to the head. Unfortunately, CTE can only be diagnosed after death, and the attention it receives overshadows other consequences of repetitive brain trauma.
Meanwhile, hundreds of children take their lives each year while thousands suffer from mental illness, we suspect due to prolonged exposure to contact sports. So what exactly is harming and killing our kids? That question is why we pursue grants and research: to drive society's understanding and connect the dots between contact sports, brain injuries and the progressive mental health issues affecting adolescent athletes.
Driven by research and the desire for further understanding, we aspire to save the lives of adolescent athletes and the athletic adults who came before them.
All Sponsored Research by The Mac Parkman Foundation
Mac Parkman Foundation Funds Brain Injury Research in Young Athletes
The Mac Parkman Foundation has committed $258,000 to Boston University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to study changes in the brains and neuropsychiatry of young contact sport athletes.
This work aims to help explain how white matter changes arising from repetitive head impacts lead to serious morbidity, including death. It has the potential to dramatically alter the way American football is played and how neuropsychiatric illness is diagnosed.
Podium presentation
- Ballatori, A.M., Haddad, A., Shahrestani, S., 2022. Determining optimal screening guidelines for novel anxiety and depression following mild traumatic brain injury. International Paediatric Brain Injury Society & North American Brain Injury Society's 2022 Joint Conference on Brain Injury, New York, NY, USA. (Podium) (Abstract)
Posters
- Ballatori, A.M., Haddad, A., Shahrestani, S., 2022. Young males have the highest odds of developing novel suicidal ideation within 365 days following a concussion. International Paediatric Brain Injury Society & North American Brain Injury Society's 2022 Joint Conference on Brain Injury, New York, NY, USA. (Poster) (Abstract)
- Ballatori, A.M., Haddad, A., Shahrestani, S., 2022. Risk factors for developing novel depression and anxiety following mild traumatic brain injury. International Paediatric Brain Injury Society & North American Brain Injury Society's 2022 Joint Conference on Brain Injury, New York, NY, USA. (Poster) (Abstract)
- Ballatori, A.M., Haddad, A., Shahrestani, S., 2022. Determining optimal screening guidelines for novel suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation following mild traumatic brain injury. International Paediatric Brain Injury Society & North American Brain Injury Society's 2022 Joint Conference on Brain Injury, New York, NY, USA. (Poster) (Abstract)
- Ballatori, A.M., Haddad, A., Shahrestani, S., 2022. Young males have the highest odds of developing novel suicidal ideation within 365 days following a concussion. Cognitive Neuroscience Society's Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA. (Poster) (Abstract)