The suicide rate among Black adolescents is increasing faster than any other racial or ethnic group. Between 2007 and 2020, the rate rose 144% among Black 10-to-17 year olds.
Alarming, right?
These statistics should underscore the need to address the underdiagnosis of mental health issues within the Black community.
Not only are Black people significantly less likely to receive mental health care due to racism and poverty, but the stigma around mental health and mistrust of the health care system drives them further away from accessing resources.
It took Temetric Reeves, an occupational therapist, a licensed social worker an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) coach three clinicians to get a diagnosis for her.
Due to a dearth of Black mental health professionals, barriers continue to exist for the community to get help, she explains.
“I don’t think clinicians are confident and competent to recognize what it is and what we’re experiencing,” she said. “Until you establish a relationship and use really good assessment tools, you’ll continue to retraumatize Black women. Maybe you understand me as a woman because if you are not a Black or a Brown woman, I’m not sure you understand the totality of my experience.”
The problem is that although 55.4% of psychiatrists are women, we must look at the issue through the intersectionality of gender and race. As of 2018, 64.3% of psychiatrists were white, followed by 18% Asian, 9.5% Hispanic or Latino, 5.3% Black, 2.8% unknown, and 0.1% Native American and Alaskan Native.
A Johns Hopkins study from 2020 says the situation is worse for women of color, as although half the population in the U.S. is female, only 38.5% of practicing psychiatrists were female, and 10.4% of them were Black, Latino, or Native American combined.
“I don’t wanna explain to you about the Black experience. I want you to do some homework first,” Reeves added.
African American adults are also 20% more likely to report serious psychological distress than white adults, but just one in three African Americans who struggle with mental health issues will ever receive appropriate treatment, according to Ruth C. White, a mental health activist and clinical associate professor in social work at the University of Southern California.
That’s not all.
The demographic has been misdiagnosed at higher rates than white patients. Not only does the cultural narrative around mental health stigma need to be changed, but Black folks must have increasing access to mental health care through intentional policy changes.
The shortage of practitioners disproportionately affects people of color. Moreover, complicated insurance policies keep health care out of the reach of low-income individuals who need urgent care, particularly African Americans who also have the lowest rates of health care insurance than any other racial demographic.
Maybe we need to look harder at the data. The rate of mental illness and substance use may be lower among people of color than their white counterparts, but are they not also underdiagnosed at a higher rate?
It is time we acknowledge that systemic racism affects the Black population, ranging from a lack of diversity among physicians and treatment, the cost of medication, and the stigma around receiving help for mental health issues, to a lack of training for the treatment of people of color and implicit bias.
A systematic approach to the problem will reveal more than we are ready to accept: inequities take time to overcome. We need a diverse mental health workforce that utilizes culturally sensitive methods of diagnosis, and resources that reduce structural barriers to care. Only then can we approach a safe space for people of color to seek help.
