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In 1999, Dr. David Satcher went boldly where no surgeon general had gone before when he released the first-ever Surgeon General's Report on Mental Health. It revealed that mental health, like physical health, is a common concern: One of every five Americans suffers from a mental disorder. We should share Dr. Satcher's concern about the wide racial gaps between the quality of diagnosis, care, treatment and research into mental disorders. African Americans are less likely than whites to receive mental health care, and they are more likely to receive misdiagnosis and substandard treatment -- or no treatment at all.
Dr. Satcher's progressive report catalyzed commitment to improving mental health care for African Americans, but
he did not stop there: Just last year, he released a follow-up study that investigated the reasons for mental health disparities, including racism, poverty, mistrust of physicians and cultural barriers. For example, mental health clinicians are more prone to diagnostic errors when treating people of color, due to their penchant for stereotyping the behaviors of other racial groups.
Untreated mental disorders can have dire consequences -- distress, disability and, in some cases, suicide. Coupled with this is the growing concern for the disproportionately high homicide rates among African American men, highlighted
in Dr. Deborah Prothrow-Stith's book, Deadly Consequences. Thanks in part to such attention, the homicide rate among black men aged 15-34 has fallen considerably, after having risen during the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, there remains far too little attention focused upon the suicide epidemic in these same young black men. Their suicide rates skyrocketed 200 percent over just 20 years. Dr. Alvin Poussaint's superlative book, Lay My Burden Down, offers a sensitive treatment of this "invisible" trend. |
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