“The segregation that exists here on Long Island has had horrendous implications on the communities that S.T.R.O.N.G. focuses on. Gangs on Long Island is not something that’s new either,” Zatar said.

What once began as an observational study on patients with schizophrenia in 1989, has now branched out into two decades worth of an in-depth look into psychiatric epidemiology, the study of what societal factors cause mental illness.