Over a century ago, Booker T. Washington laid the foundation for Minority Health Month, when he started National Negro Health Week, with a focus on the poor living and working conditions many black people in America experienced. Today, there continue to be disparities in the care that minorities receive, compared to their white counterparts, which is why each April is dedicated to raising awareness about this problem.
At The Pavilion, in Williamsburg, Virginia, we offer behavioral and mental health support to adults and seniors who require inpatient, outpatient, or detox services. We embrace each patient as an individual, with a personal and cultural identity that shapes their needs and goals, and we strive to address healthcare disparities within our work.
Why Do Health Disparities Still Exist?
As a result of inequalities within our society, minorities in the United States are often unable to access treatment or receive inferior treatment for medical, mental health, and substance misuse needs. Some of these inequalities include:
- Racism and discrimination, including stereotypes and biases, can result in inaccurate diagnoses and ineffective treatment, such as under-diagnosis and under-treatment for affective disorders in minority patients, including depression, bipolar disorder, and anxiety. In addition, there may be over-diagnosis and over-treatment for psychotic disorders in minority patients, including schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, and less access to the newest and most comprehensive treatment options than white patients.
- Some providers aren’t overtly racist or discriminatory, but their lack of cultural competence still leads to harm, due to not understanding and relating to people outside their own group
- Inability to access health insurance – there are still about 28 million Americans without health insurance, despite the Affordable Care Act expanding coverage. Of these, black people are 1.5 times more likely than white people to be without insurance, and Hispanic people are 2.5 times more likely than non-Hispanic white people to be without insurance. American Indian/Alaskan native people are almost three times as likely as white people to lack insurance.
- Mental health providers lack diversity. American psychologists, for example, are 86 percent white, 5 percent Asian, 4 percent black, and 1 percent multi-racial/other.
- People who are part of a minority may not have received equal access to the information they need to make informed decisions about their health, leading to health illiteracy
- There are often higher rates of stigma in minority communities for having mental health or substance use disorders, which can decrease the likelihood of people reaching out for help.
- Minorities are often exposed to more trauma due to higher rates of incarceration, disproportionate child welfare system involvement, inability to afford safe, stable housing, bullying, and violence as a result of ethnicity, race, or other minority status.
- Language barriers.
- Research that is overly focused on white patients.
Results of Disparities in Mental Health Care
There is still a wide gap in the care received by minorities in our country. From 2008-2012, among adults meeting the criteria for a mental health diagnosis, treatment was provided to:
- 46.3 percent of white adults
- 41.6 percent of Indigenous adults
- 30 percent of Black adults
- 27 percent of Hispanic adults
Not receiving adequate community-based mental health care increases the risk of:
- Increased emergency services utilization
- Higher numbers of involuntary hospitalizations
- More reliance on law enforcement to make interventions happen
- Overuse of antipsychotics
Further Negative Consequences
These methods of engaging minorities in mental health services may fuel distrust and anger towards the mental health system, decreasing the likelihood of a patient seeking out mental health services voluntarily in the future. Failure to treat a mental health condition promptly and effectively can also increase the likelihood of a person developing serious medical issues, which include:
- Cancer
- Diabetes
- Heart problems
- Pulmonary disease
- Stroke
The medical issues listed above are linked to a shorter life span among people with mental health disorders, who often die 11-32 years earlier than people without psychiatric disorders. Early and effective treatment can help to reduce these risks, however.
At The Pavilion, our team is dedicated to offering trauma-informed, culturally-informed, evidence-based care for every patient we serve. The adults and seniors we serve, and their support systems, are a valued part of the treatment team, whose expertise is irreplaceable and respected.
