CURRENT EVENTS: MENTAL HEALTH IN
THE BLACK COMMUNITY
Tamiah Jackson
October 29, 2018
• African Americans are overrepresented in highchance populaces and are known to encounter
weaknesses in psychological services. With an end
goal to better comprehend the obstructions that
keep African Americans from accepting satisfactory
psychological services, this PowerPoint explains how
African Americans face numerous barriers to
treatment that make them less likely to get the care
they need and, as a result, the consequences of
mental illness in minorities may be long lasting.
STATISTICS
• In 2014, 13.2 percent or 45.7 million of the US population identified as African
American, out of that 13.2 percent, 16 percent had a diagnosable mental illness.
• In 2016, 20 percent of African Americans are more likely to report a serious
psychological distress, which is only 14.9 million out of 74.5 million African
American population in 2016.
WHY DON’T AFRICAN AMERICANS
SEEK MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT?
BLACK MEN AND
MENTAL HEALTH
• Black men often are socialized or grow up
in homes where masculinity is emphasized,
and men are not encouraged to talk about
or show their feelings or emotions
• Ex: A young boy gets hurt playing outside and
goes home crying, instead of comforting the
young boy, the father tells him to stop crying
and man up because “men don’t cry”.
• Kid Cudi
• Checked himself into a rehabilitation center
suffering from depression, anxiety,
and suicidal ideation
STIGMA AROUND
SEEKING HELP
• Stigma is can be known as the most
extensive obstacle to African Americans in
seeking psychological well- being support
• African Americans tend to have a more
appalling states of mind toward people with
mental illness contrasted with whites.
• Conceding one has a mental disorder is
seen as an individual fault or absence of
confidence.
• Because of this, African Americans are less
likely to seek treatment when needed.
DISTRUST OF THE HEALTH CARE
SYSTEM
• Distrust of the health care system stems from the countless years of prejudice,
oppression, and medical experimentation from white people.
• Black people were often used for logical and medicinal advancement, like guinea
pigs.
• The surgical investigation of Dr. J. Marion Sims and the Tuskegee Test also aid in the
decline of psychological help within the African American community.
• Dr. J . Marion Sims was an Alabama surgeon (gynecology) who carried out a series of
excruciating, experimental gynecological operations , without the use of anesthesia or
antiseptic, on black slave women between 1845 and 1849. The surgery that he practiced on
Lucy, Anarcha, Betsey, and the other enslaved women was to repair a vesicovaginal fistula—
a devastating complication of prolonged labor. Because of this experimentation, many lost
their lives to infection.
• In the fall of 1932, the fliers began appearing around Macon County, Alabama, promising
“colored people” special treatment for “bad blood.” The study recruited 600 black men, of
which 399 were diagnosed with syphilis and 201 were a control group without the disease.
The researchers never obtained informed consent from the men and never told the men
with syphilis that they were not being treated but were simply being watched until they
died, and their bodies examined for the after-effects of the disease.
• It destroyed the trust many African Americans held for medical institutions — a legacy
that persists today.
L ACK OF PROV I DE R S
FROM DI V E R SE
R ACI AL / E T H NI C
B ACK G ROUNDS
The field of psychological
therapy is dominated by
white people.
Roughly only 5.3 percent of
African Americans are
active Psychologist, while
black people make up
13.4% of the US population.
Most African Americans are
more likely to connect and
open up with someone of
the same racial/ ethnic
background.
The number of people
employed as Psychologists
in the U.S. were
162,471 people in 2016.
So this means that out of
those 162,471 psychologist,
roughly only 8,611 of those
psychologist are African
Americans.
Because the vast majority of psychologist are nonHispanic whites, many health professionals are
unaware or undereducated of the inequities or
injustices needed to correctly and proficiently treat
their African American patients. This is compounded
by the fact that some Black/African American patients
have reported experiencing racism and subtle or
intentional discrimination from therapists.
L ACK OF
C U LT U R ALLY
C OMPE T E NT
PROV I DE R S
African Americans always feel as though mental health
professional don’t understand them or what they go
through because of the social and economic
differences.
This also leads in the steady decline of mental health
treatment of African Americans.
RELIGION
• Some African Americans even see mental illness as a punishment from God.
Up to 85 percent of African Americans describe themselves as “fairly
religious” or “religious” and they commonly use prayer to handle stress,
according to one study cited by the American Psychiatric Association.
• Spiritual beliefs, family, and community are a great source of emotional
support, but can be a barrier to receiving needed professional medical or
therapeutic treatment.
• Black churches are seen as the safe haven or a hypothetical mental
institution for coping with mental health problems. In many African American
families, people are taught that any issue you go through, can be solved by
attending church or praying to God, when, its much deeper than eat.
• Stigmatized: Black Churches and Mental Health
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5dxqgpsXs&t=0s&index=27&list=WL
Mental
Health in
the Black
Community
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnkdqkY90gQ&t=153s&index=26&list=WL
Stigmatized:
Black
Churches
and Mental
Health
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5dxqgps-Xs&t=0s&index=27&list=WL
VIDEOS