Essay On African American Mental Health

392 Words2 Pages

MENTAL HEALTH: BLACK COMMUNITY Mental Health in the Black community has rapidly grown overtime. According to the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. (Mental Health American p. 3) Mental health disorder is popular in the Black community. Which can include: depression, ADHD and PTSD, which usually stem from either a violent past or background. (NAMI p. 3) Furthermore, Cultural Trauma probes the internal conflicts over the form and meaning of representation and culture in successive generations of black Americans after slavery. (Washington p.2). Black identity stemmed from cultural trauma during slavery. “African American” …show more content…

Although, studies of attitudes and beliefs specific to African American women are scarce, a recent qualitative study of African American women 's beliefs about depression found the women believed they were not susceptible to depression (Waite & Killian, 2008). They believed that an individual develops depression due to having a “weak mind, poor health, a troubled spirit, and lack of self-love” (Ward, Heidrich p. 189). The amount of resources to get help is low. African American women 's use of mental health services also may be influenced by barriers, including access (inaccessible location, transportation problems, lack of health insurance, and poverty), availability of services (few opportunities for group counseling and in-home services), social issues (lack of childcare), poor quality of care (limited access to culturally competent clinicians and case management), and cultural matching (few opportunities to work with racial and ethnic minority clinicians; Cristancho, Garces, Peters, & Mueller, 2008; Miranda et al., 2003; Tidwell,

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