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Concept paper about mental health awareness
Concept paper about mental health awareness
Concept paper about mental health awareness
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Mental illness is an increasing problem in America. Currently about 26.2% of Americans suffer from a mental disorder. A mental illness/disorder is a medical condition that disrupts a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, and ability to relate to others and daily functions. Mental illness can affect humans of any age, race, gender and socioeconomic status. However the care that is needed to effectively cure and help the people affected by the illness is not equal for everyone here in American, especially for African Americans. Health care for mental illness is an issue in the African American community for Men, Women and Adolescents due to the underserving and lack of mental healthcare providers, the cultural stigma of having mental illness and the socioeconomic status of African Americans. The African American community is suffering with the issue of inadequate mental health care for many decades. There is a deep lack of understanding about what mental illness is and there are many barriers that hinder African Americans from receiving the care that they need. People are unaware of the effects of mental illness, and what mental illness can encompass. “Most importantly, mental health includes people’s feelings of worth in the context of the total cultural and societal system as well as within the identifiable groups to which they belong.” (Snowden, 165) The experience you receive as a race and how you perceive your race is apart of mental illness. Many African American people look down upon their race due to socioeconomic hierarchy that society has given people. African American’s are at high risk to developing mental illness. Healthcare providers have misdiagnosed many African Americans due to lack of knowledge. “African Americans in ... ... middle of paper ... ...3. Abstract. EBSCO eBook Collection. Web. . NAMI. "African American Community Mental Health." NAMI. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. . Snowden, Lonnie R. Barriers to Effective Mental Health Services for African Americans. N.p.: n.p., 2001. Print. Mental Health Services Research 4. Stagman, Shannon, and Janice L. Cooper. "Children's Mental Health." WWW.nccp.org. Ed. Columbia University. Columbia University, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. . Ward, Earlise C. African American Women's Beliefs about Mental Illness, Stigma, and Preferred Coping Behaviors. Madison: Wiley Periodicals, 2009. Print. Willie, Charles V., Bernard M. Kramer, and Bertram S. Brown, eds. Racism Racism Racism and Mental Health. N.p.: Univerity of Pittsburgurgh Press, 1973. Print. Contemporary Community Health Series.
Jewelll, N., & Russell, K. (1992). Current health status of african americans. Journal of community health nursing, 9(3), 161-169.
Throughout American history, relationships between racial and ethnic groups have been marked by antagonism, inequality, and violence. In today’s complex and fast-paced society, historians, social theorists and anthropologists have been known to devote significant amounts of time examining and interrogating not only the interior climate of the institutions that shape human behavior and personalities, but also relations between race and culture. It is difficult to tolerate the notion; America has won its victory over racism. Even though many maintain America is a “color blind nation,” racism and racial conflict remain to be prevalent in the social fabric of American institutions. As a result, one may question if issues and challenges regarding the continuity of institutional racism still exist in America today. If socialization in America is the process by which people of various ethnicities and cultures intertwine, it is vital for one to understand how the race relations shape and influence personalities regarding the perceptions of various groups. Heartbreaking as it is, racism takes a detour in acceptance of its blind side. Further, to better understand racism one must take into account how deeply it entrenched it is, not only in politics, and economics but also Health Care settings. In doing so, one will grasp a decisive understanding of "who gets what and why.” The objective of this paper is to explore and examine the pervasiveness of racism in the health care industry, while at the same time shed light on a specific area of social relations that has remained a silence in the health care setting. The turpitude feeling of ongoing silence has masked the treatment black patients have received from white health care providers...
Mental healthcare has a long and murky past in the United States. In the early 1900s, patients could live in institutions for many years. The treatments and conditions were, at times, inhumane. Legislation in the 1980s and 1990s created programs to protect this vulnerable population from abuse and discrimination. In the last 20 years, mental health advocacy groups and legislators have made gains in bringing attention to the disparity between physical and mental health programs. However, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses continues to be less than optimal. Mental health disparities continue to exist in all areas of the world.
Cook, D. & Helms, J. (1999). Using race and culture in counseling and psychotherapy. Needham Heights, Massachusetts: A Viacom Company.
Studies have analyzed how African Americans deal with an enormous amount of disease, injury, death, and disability compared to other ethnic group, and whites, Utilization of health services by African Americans is less frequent than other ethnic groups in the country. This non utilization of services contributes to health disparities amongst African Americans in the United States. Current and past studies have shown that because of discrimination, medical mistrust, racial/ethnic background, and poor communication African Americans tend to not seek medical care unless they are in dire need or forced to seek professional care. African Americans would rather self –medicate than to trust a doctor who might show some type of discriminatory
"African American Communities and Mental Health." Mental Health America. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2014. .
Williams, D. R., & Jackson, P. (2014, April 1). Health Affairs. Social Sources Of Racial Disparities In Health. Retrieved April 29, 2014, from http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/24/2/325.short
Harriet Tubman once said, I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other. Throughout history the African American culture has constantly been fighting for rights and equality. But in doing so has been denied it. With this happening more and more over the years it seems to have caused them more than just physical pain when violence is added to the equation. It has caused PTSD. The African American community suffers from PTSD due to Racism, what is considered as today’s “lynchings”, and Police Brutality.
The elimination of disparities in mental health care among ethnic, racial and underprivileged populations, specifically minorities remains a challenge amongst mental health care workers and medical professionals. Many minority areas are more impoverished, rely on government assistance and have a higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases, chronic diseases, and injuries compare to any other ethnicity. In recent studies there are strategies to help eliminate disparities in mental health care, such as improving health care access, quality, offering diverse mental health workforce, providers, and patient education. These are just several strategies that can help assist in disparities. The goal is to reduce or eliminate racial, ethnic and socioeconomic health inequalities that affect minorities.
...quently diagnosed with schizophrenia than other races, which can primarily be attributed to misdiagnosis. This misdiagnosis is a result of diagnostic tools that fail to properly take cultural differences into consideration, as well as a lack of education on how to interpret these cultural differences. African-Americans are also less likely to seek and receive specialized treatment for cultural and economic reasons. Black patients benefit most from treatment by those in their own ethnic group, as well as clinicians with a mindful awareness of cultural differences and the justified mistrust of psychiatric care. Going forward greater research and attention should be given to the kinds of treatments that work best for African Americans. Improved education of clinicians will also help curb misdiagnosis and elevate the mistrust felt within the African American community.
Fischer, A. R., & Shaw, C. (1999). African americans mental health and perceptions of racist discrimination: The moderating effects of racial socialization experiences and self-esteem. Journal of Counseling Psychology,46(3), 395-407. Retrieved from psycnet.apa.org/journals/cou/46/3/395.html
Racial Discrimination is a detrimental stressor among African Americans (Sellers et al., 2003). As a result, African Americans are more likely to be faced with poorer mental and physical health outcomes. There has been research conducted relating to African Americans’ experience with racial discrimination. Specifically African Americans exposed to racial discrimination are likely to experience multiple externalizing outcomes, including anger aggressive behavior and delinquency (e.g., Kang & Burton, 2014). Given these negative outcomes of racial discrimination, it is important to identify factors that are protective against racial discrimination. Racial identity is defined as the importance of race to African Americans as well as the meaning
Stigma refers to any attribute, trait or disorder that labels a person as “unacceptably different” from “normal people” and compounds the already devastating effects of mental health problems. Most people learn what they know about mental illness from the mass media as we are exposed daily to radio, television and newspaper accounts that present people with mental illness as violent, criminal, dangerous, incompetent and fundamentally different from the rest of us. To combat these depictions, anti-stigma education is crucial in changing the attitudes and behaviors of those who don’t understand mental health and
Without explicitly stating this, it would be exceptionally easy for the community to overlook the importance of multicultural inclusion in mental health care. Minorities are not part of the elite system that holds the stigma to its current influential standard, but in a largely white community with all white therapists, it could still feel uncomfortable to reach out for help. Integrated into the intervention to eliminate the stigma around mental health in the community should be a lesson that mental illnesses can happen to everyone regardless of race (I am sure we have all heard the myth that eating disorders are unique to white girls), and on the reverse side, reminding the more close-minded citizens of the community that their perceived status is not lowered just because they are getting treatment for the same thing a person of color or lower socioeconomic status is. The best way to get this community to believe you is by letting them experience it themselves, which circles us back around to beginning with using advocacy as an eliminator of the stigma surrounding mental health care. Making people comfortable enough to try something for themselves will change their perceptions and fuel the community organizing intervention even
Parents were asked whether or not they have been personally afflicted by racism and whether or not people they know have been afflicted by racism (O’Brien Caughy, O'Campo, & Muntaner, 2004). It was found that “parents who denied experiencing racism had the highest behavioral problems among their children” (O’Brien Caughy, O'Campo, & Muntaner, 2004). The parents who denied having been personally discriminated against were more apt to have children who suffered from anxiety and depression in this study (O’Brien Caughy, O'Campo, & Muntaner, 2004). Those who confronted their own personal experiences with racism were less likely to have children who suffered from mental