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Mental Health In African American Community Essay

563 Words3 Pages

I believe that it is very important to discuss and normalize mental health as much as we do physical health. Mental health, if undetected can lead to a number of many horrendous things such as homicide, suicide, and more. More importantly to me, mental health has become such a huge epidemic in the African American community. Not only does physical health rates tend to be worse for African Americans, but mental health rates are as well. African Americans have the highest infant mortality rate, higher cancer and cardiovascular disease rates, higher homicide rates, and the lowest life expectancy, with African American men being at the very bottom. These statistics are due to a number of different reasons, but one of the greatest factors is that …show more content…

The mental health rate in the African American community is often never taken care of or diagnosed so this rate is possibly much higher. Very common mental health issues experienced within the African American community are Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), major depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and suicide. The suicide rate among African American men has unfortunately increased significantly. Also, African Americans are twenty percent more likely to suffer from mental health disorders compared to the rest of the general population, yet we are much less likely to seek help for these mental health problems. Part of the reason that Dr. Harris stated that African Americans do not seek help for mental health issues is because of the harsh history of mental health in the African American community. Based on the historical documents from the Virginia Central Lunatic Asylum for the Colored Insane, the history of how African Americans with mental health issues were treated was not good at all. Not only was it not good, African Americans could be locked away and deemed “lunatics” for something as simple as going through a

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