I recently watched an interesting webcast that examined the lack of quality mental healthcare for African-American patients. Ever since the pandemic has started, there has been an increase in mental health patients being admitted to hospitals. Many have succumbed to conditions such as depression during these hard times. Most of those patients are in the black community.
However, one of the statistics that I found out from this live online discussion is that 69% of Black adults with mental health disorders don’t receive any treatments. What’s also alarming is that 42% of black adults with serious disorders also don’t receive any mental healthcare. What is behind these unfortunate statistics? Why isn’t something as vital as mental healthcare being equally distributed amongst all people? Let’s examine what truly behind these health disparities between blacks and other ethnic groups.
What is Stigma?
One of the reasons behind unequal mental healthcare between blacks and other ethnic groups is stigma. This occurs when someone starts to look at a person negatively because of their mental illness. When a person you know has a psychological disorder, you start to identify or acknowledge them as “psycho” rather than as a person with this problem. Like I’ve mentioned in a previous post about mental health, what we say to people could have a big impact on them. For African-Americans dealing with a mental illness, stigma could make it harder for them to recover.
Stigma causes a lot of bad effects on a person. These effects could impact a person’s daily life:
- Feelings of shame and isolation.
- Struggles to find employment or education.
- Physical violence or harassment.
- Lack of support or help from family and friends.
- Refusal to seek help for their condition.
We as a people must be careful in the words we use toward one another. One of us could be suffering privately with a mental illness and we’re unaware of it.
Other Factors that Play a Role
In addition to stigma playing a role, limited access to mental health services in black communities is also a significant factor. During his first year as mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel caused quite a stir when he closed half of our city’s mental health clinics in 2012. This left many at-risk patients without stable care. Many of these mental health clinics were in minority neighborhoods.
Another factor in unequal mental healthcare amongst races is the medical system not being accessible enough for everyone. Providers must avoid any form of discrimination or bias when delivering services to their black mental health patients. This involves them developing a better understanding of the minority patient’s perspective on life. They must also be thorough in how they diagnose mental health disorders in blacks.
Time When Justice and Mental Healthcare will be fixed
Of course, most of us look forward to a time when justice will really be for all (see Eccl. 5:8) and no one will have to say that I am sick (see Isaiah 33:24). This troubling problem makes me truly long for this time as well. But until then, let us all try to reduce these disparities by making sure our mentally sick loved ones get the quality help they need despite this help being limited.
What are your opinions about this issue? What do you think must be done to reduce racial disparities in mental healthcare? Leave your questions or comments below. As usual, be sure to like or share this post with someone you love.
