Mental health disparities, “the power imbalances that impact practices influencing access, quality, and outcomes of behavioral health care, or a significant disparity in the overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, or survival rate in a specific group of people defined along racial and ethnic lines, as compared with the general population” (Safran, 2011). Although there are many mental health care dipartites, I’m going to focus on the impact of poverty and lack of attention given to mental health. By advocating for a prevention, promotion, and intervention related to mental health, will aid in minimizing mental health disparities. Not only is it important to advocate on a macro level, but it is important to educate …show more content…
Poverty in mental health prevents patients from seeking out medical attention due to lack of insurance. “insurance coverage disparities make mental health care less accessible than other forms of health care” (Safran, 2011). Due to lack of insurance patients are not receiving adequate care, such as being evaluated, receiving the appropriate treatments, and not going to doctor follow up appointments to ensure proper care. Without receiving proper treatment, it can cause the patient condition to get worse and would not have a chance of a successful outcome. Also, poverty can cause additional stress and anxiety making the mental illness progress. “The stresses of living with someone who has a mental health problem may be particularly pronounced for families who live in resource poor areas where treatment options, accurate information, and social support may be limited.” (Bischoff, 2017). Lack of attention is another health disparities, due to lack of attention, there is limited funding sources to help mental health patients. Since there is a lack of funding these individuals are not getting the appropriate help that is needed. As well since mental health lacks attention and funding, there are limited mental health institutions, so people who need to be institutionalized may be required to be relocated to another city/state. We must try our best to provide all resources for our patients and
The relationship between mental health and poverty can prove to be complicated at times because of an overwhelmingly large number of outside
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.
Diabetes Programs: The Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute Experience. Curr Diab Rep Current Diabetes Reports, 14(2). Doi:10.1007/s11892-013-0462-0
States obtain many services that fall under mental health care, and that treat the mentally ill population. These range from acute and long-term hospital treatment, to supportive housing. Other effective services utilized include crisis intervention teams, case management, Assertive Community Treatment programs, clinic services, and access to psychiatric medications (Honberg at al. 6). These services support the growing population of people living in the...
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
Mental health care disparities can be rooted in inequalities in access to good providers, differences in insurance coverage, or discrimination by health professionals in the clinical encounter (McGuire & Miranda, 2008). Surely, those who are affected by these disparities are minorities Blacks and Latinos compare to Whites. Due to higher rates of poverty and poor health among United States minorities compared with whites. Moreover, the fact that poverty and poor health are
On October 31, 1963, President Kennedy signed the Community Mental Health Act into law with the aim to change the delivery method of mental health care (National Council for Behavioral Health, 2013). The primary aim was to release the mentally ill from institutions and allow them to successfully integrate into functional members of society. In an effort to achieve this goal, delivery of care would be a coordination of effort from a network of outpatient clinics, community services, partial hospitalizations, and when needed emergency services. The funding for these services was to be from a combination of government, private programs and self-pay sources. However, due to the recent recession government sources reduced funds available for mental health services (Thomas). This economic reality coupled with an already fragmented health care system has left mental ill vulnerable. Patients that fall into the cracks in the system often end up in homeless shelters, jails/prisons or the morgue (Szabo, 2012).
People with serious socio-emotional and emotional disturbances are challenged in many aspects of life. Historically people of color with serious mental health related issues had little assistance and chances to having their needs met equally to Whites. In order to properly or adequately address the emotional and mental wellbeing of everyone on an equal basis, the stigma association must be removed from people of color.
Alvin Mushkatel, Subhrajit Guhathakurta, Jackie Thompson, Kathy Thomas, and Michael Franczak (2009) explored the quality of life of people who have serious mental illness, who where homeless within the metropolitan Phoenix area. In the experiment, two programs that were looked at were Supportive Housing (SL) and the Supervised Assisted Living (SIL) programs (Mushkatel, Guhathakurta, Thompson, Thomas, & Franczak, 2009). The study looked at different factors “such as neighborhood racial composition, incomes, housing tenure and concentrations of other subsidized housing” (Mushkatel, Guhathakurta, Thompson, Thomas, & Franczak, 2009, para. 1) and how it impacted the lives of people with severe mental illness. In 1997, “deinstitutionalization had resulted in 2.2 million severely mentally ill patients without supportive psychiatric services” (Mushkatel, Guhathakurta, Thompson, Thomas, & Franczak, 2009, para 3) and many people with serious mental illness became hom...
The mental health assessment is a crucial part in everyday nursing care as it evaluates an individual’s mental condition to assess for risk factors of mental illnesses and provide optimal care and treatment. Mental health is described as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” (CDC) If the patient not mentally healthy, they can develop mentally illnesses, which can affect treatment and the disease process of physical ailments because without mental health a person cannot be completely healthy. “Suicide Risk Assessment in High Risk Adolescents” is a nursing article that outlines suicide risk factors and prevention strategies for assist nurses in performing mental health assessments. Suicide, the act of
What does the term health disparities mean? Health disparities are the differences in health statues between different groups of people (Mitchell, 2015). These health disparities are closely related to social, environmental, and economical status of the people trying to get health care. Health disparities affect people who have gone through certain things based on their race, ethnicity, age, economic status and many more factors (Kotch, 2013). 2.Which racial/ethnic groups are more likely to be affected by health disparities?
In other words, socioeconomic status serves as an impediment to seeking out clinical care for mental disorders. The mental health of low SES individuals is more negatively impacted with lack of utilization. Educational attainment, marital status, and accessibility of financial resources are the main factors that contribute to this disparity (Thurston & Phares 2008). Since many ethnic minorities tend to be of lower SES, they experience a higher likelihood of underutilization of mental health services. With that being said, the specific barriers that inhibit African-Americans from receiving medical attention for mental illnesses are as follows: accessibility, availability, acceptability and accountability (Thurston & Phares 2008). The first two obstacles stem from socioeconomic circumstances, while the remaining are facets of individual determinants. Accessibility refers to the cost of mental health services; availability indicates the number and quality of options that is economically feasible for an
Within lower income countries there are necessities that are not provided as they are in higher income countries. Most of these necessities include drinkable water, access to adequate medical attention, proper nutrition within vegetation, treatment for blood borne diseases, and much more. All of these basic needs are categorized in a priority hierarchy in the African community. As these are essential priorities of life, mental health stands at the bottom of their hierarchy. The fact that mental health is low in priority due to the following factors: “inappreciativeness of mental illness prevalence, misunderstanding, poor media coverage, not knowledgeable of interventions, preference of self-care/ traditional healing, lack of funding, competing health priorities, lack of advocacy, and socio-cultural beliefs” (Bird et al., 2011). Add page number
Every time a large shooting event is talked about, everyone only talks about the gun and laws on buying and owning a gun. People (politicians mostly) gloss over the fact that most times mental health/disorders are involved. No one wants to talk about mental health due to the sigma of it and how everyone is scared of it due to no real education on the topic. Many times the people who need the most help never get help they need due to the stigma of mental health/ disorders. An example is how if someone has something wrong mentally with them, they become pariahs if they talk about it. Because of the stigma and treatment problems, mental health/ disorders stigmas and treatment must change to be able to help more people.
Mental health refers to the state of individuals psychologically, emotionally and socially. Mental health affects a person’s emotions, feelings, thoughts, and sections when exposed to different situations. Furthermore, mental health is responsible for a person’s reaction to stress and other social conditions. Generally, mental health affects how a person relates to others and their ability to understand and interact with them. Therefore, problems that affect a person’s mental health affect the abilities to socialize, their feelings, moods, reaction to situations. The person experiencing mental health problem may portray different behaviors when confronted with different issues. Mental health issues have several