Mental Illness African American Youth

African American Youth with Mental Illness

Part 1: Background

Observation

The African American Youth experience unique structural and contextual hurdles as they transition from childhood into early adulthood. While their experiences vary, similar cultural phenomena are prevalent and make this population more prone to mental health challenges than white peers. According to Snowden (2020), one in every five African American youth (9 million) has a severe mental illness, and less than half of them receive treatment for the preexisting condition. Further, any psychiatric care attention to the untreated population is administered in emergency centers instead of specialized facilities in mental healthcare compared to peers from other races. Notably, emergency room physicians are only equipped to handle such cases when there is an emergency and are only a short-term solution to deescalate the mental health crisis. However, the access to mental healthcare in communities where mental health challenges are prevalent is limited or looked upon as a point of shame to engage by individuals who might be living with mental illness and society, resulting in stigma.

These challenges are made perennial in the African American community for the youth due to the lack of attention to these challenges in the earlier generations. The historical injustices, such as enslavement; economic, social, and political marginalization; and denial of access to essential services such as healthcare, have contributed to the development and persistence of the perennial problem of mental health problems. These past challenges are still preexistent in modern structural, individual, and institutional racism that has purveyed a mistrust in the healthcare system in these economically marginalized communities. Such communities are characterized by a high prevalence of drug abuse among African American youth, low academic achievement and high dropout rates, and a high prevalence of violence (Mental Health America, 2022). Such environmental conditions contribute to high depression prevalence from childhood and untreated into adulthood. Religious outreach as a means of coping with depression was a belief system that seeking medical intervention results in stigmatization and victimization of the affected individuals.

Identification of the Problem

The social problem that needs addressing is the lack of access to mental healthcare knowledge and stigmatization of individuals seeking mental illness treatment. However, the problem can further be classified into the lack of awareness about the need and efficacy of mental health treatment, poverty that limits access to mental healthcare, lack of social support for treatment, and negative attitudes towards mental health treatment among peers and members of the community. In Research conducted by Mental Health America (2022), 13.4% of the U.S. population accounting for 46 million of the national population, are black and more than 25% of African American youth experience different types of violence and dangers, placing this population at higher risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (APA, 2015). The social-economic status disproportionately disadvantages black youth by being overrepresented by 22% of the national population living in poverty, incarceration, presenting in foster homes, and being victims of violent crime. As discussed by the Office of the Surgeon General (US) (2001), the challenge of access to mental healthcare found that only 2% of licensed psychiatrists in the U.S. are African American. These challenge with access to mental healthcare is prevalent. Despite the stigmatization of mental health patients, the lack of familiarity with the healthcare providers furthers the mistrust of the mental healthcare providers and limits community engagement.

Focus Group and Community

Approaching this issue from a community perspective offers a systematic understanding of the challenges with seeking and access to mental health treatment. Further, it offers a comparative capacity to examine the rates of seeking and accessing treatment among different ethnic groups. For example, according to Kalisz-Hulbert (2020), black youth are less likely to seek treatment for mental health issues than their white peers at 9% compared to 46% respective treatment rates. National Alliance for Mental Illness (2021) found a 32.9% annual treatment rate for mental illness among Hispanics in this community, which is significantly higher than the treatment rates of black youth. The community engagement approach of this Research will employ social structures to address the challenges of stigmatization and systematic approaches to address difficulties in access to mental healthcare.

The social perspective refers to the description of social and political networks that link community organizations, individuals, and leaders’ engagement in the engagement of planning efforts. The core focus group is the African American youth in Riverside-San Bernardino–Ontario metropolitan area (Lindsey et al., 2010). Community engagement is critical to addressing the social issues associated with the mental health challenges among the youth in this region. It will be accomplished through daily interaction in faith institutions, schools, and online mediums to effect change in the physical and social environments critical for success following the social-ecological model of health.

Theory Framework

The social-ecological model of health will be employed to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of the community engagement plan. The model espouses that health is affected by the interaction of the group, individual, and the physical social-political environments (Boyd et al., 2022). Consequently, integrating the change in the social and physical environment instead of the interventions to treat an individual’s health behaviors. The social-ecological model of health focuses on impacting the individual as a member of a community and the socioeconomic conditions in the systematic approach.

Stakeholders

The stakeholders in the community engagement are classified into different levels in the systematic approach and the social approach. The societal levels involve existing mental health treatment such as the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), city council members, and the city of Riverside-San Bernardino–Ontario metropolitan area. The engagement of these stakeholders will facilitate the change in policy by increasing resource allocation to create awareness and the impact of stigmatization preventing the community’s overall health. The systematic levels include organizations, such as organizations of faith, schools, and community groups that impact infrastructure, informing the development of community functions. The family relationships will be targeted by championing support for patients who have been diagnosed with a mental health illness.

Integrate

As established, the use of medical services to address mental health illnesses might conflict with the belief systems of African Americans. The conviction that prayer effectively eradicates challenges seeking mental healthcare interventions since it may be perceived as a challenge to the community’s faith system. This may heighten the challenge among the black youth to seek mental treatment services.

Unique Perspective

This is a biased perspective since the spiritual understanding of such matters is avoided. For example, scriptures such as “Cast your cares on me, all those who are heavy burdens no me, and I will grant you rest” (Matthew 11:28, 2021) are taken from one perspective. Other scriptures of love in the same book place the responsibility to the individuals to God, then to both ourselves and our neighbors. If these principles were held dearly in African American families, the challenges of stigmatization would not exist despite their faith. The discipline, values, and virtues pertinent to Christianity can be leveraged to help the community avoid drug abuse among the youth and seek help from mental healthcare facilities.