The Diagnosis Of African Americans Essay

Though social problems affect a wide variety of people from all races, classes, and cultures; minorities, specifically African Americans, encounter social problems on a multi-dimensional basis. Poverty, employment rates, discrimination, and other social problems strike African Americans in such a way that it is nearly impossible to separate them; each individual has different background, socially and physically, that would determine in which order his or her social problems need to be solved. Impoverished blacks in the inner city may have difficulty finding or keeping jobs, while others may have jobs, but face troubles with work discrimination that prevent them from moving upward .Underemployment, workplace inequalities, and unbalanced

Statistics state that mental illness is estimated to be higher in blacks than in whites. One of the contributing factors to why blacks aren’t being cared for when they have a mental illness is because of the stigma that mental illness doesn’t exist within the community. According to Plowden (2006), “ African American men often differ in their presentation of depression and are often misdiagnosed. African American men are at greater risk for depression, but they are less likely to participate in mental health care.” This is due to the

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

This article is a great article that relates to African Americans seeking mental health treatment at lower rates than whites. The article states that this disparity can be attributed to attitudes toward services, alternate coping, and differences in care. This article also illuminates biases in counseling.

Health care for mental illness is an issue in the African American community for Men, Women and Adolescents due to the underserving and lack of mental healthcare providers, the cultural stigma of having mental illness and

Racism against African Americans and other ethnicities is still prevalent in our society. Salis (2015) mentions a recent poll of Caucasian and African Americans and found that sixty percent of those surveyed felt racial relationships ha vent improved and forty percent felt they were worse. In this paper, I will identify how a counselor can reduce the effects of racism and discrimination that has affected African Americans. Additionally, I will address what role a counselor plays in reducing the stigma of mental illness within the African American community. Furthermore, I will highlight the legal and ethical issues identified in the video

The purpose of this paper is to exemplify the healthcare crisis of African Americans within the broader context of American healthcare reform. In order for one to appreciate the depth of necessity for healthcare reform in the African American community, he or she must have a general understanding of the history of healthcare for African Americans. As stated by the institute of medicine in a study assessing the health and mental health disparities of African Americans, “The sources of these disparities are complex, are rooted in historic and contemporary inequities, and involve many participants at several levels, including health systems, their administrative and bureaucratic processes, utilization managers, healthcare professionals, and

Across the country, a steady increase has been noted in the number of patients presenting to emergency departments for psychiatric complaints (Zun, 2014). Patients also attempt to use their primary care doctors to treat their mental illnesses. The mental health care options for these patients are extremely limited, especially for minority populations such as African Americans and Hispanics. One out of four adults in America suffers from some form of mental illness, yet only one out of three of those affected receives treatment (Safran, 2009). Furthermore, patients are routinely misdiagnosed, receive poor quality of care, receive care from providers who have no understanding of their cultures and values, or are not even able to receive care in the first place (Sanchez, 2012).

When experiencing a mental illness, African Americans face obstacles “related to understanding the problem or situation and limitation in awareness of possible solutions, strategies remedies and resources” (Hines-Martin, Malone, Kim, & Brown-Piper, 2003). In a study by Hines-Martin (2003), participants verbalized that they did not think they were “crazy” and therefore did not need mental health services. In this instance participants showed a lack of knowledge about what mental health illness looks like. They identified mental illness as dichotomous states (Hines-Martin et al., 2003). A study by Mental Health America found similar results. In this study, a majority of African Americans surveyed believed that depression was a “health problem” and in some cases “normal” (MHA, 2012). Talking about mental illness is taboo for African Americans, and as a result they possess little knowledge about specific mental health problems or available treatments (Alvidrez et al., 2008). For African Americans, stigma serves as an impediment to problem recognition. Because they have a misconstrued idea of what mental illness is, they are less likely to contemplate that they have such problems. Alvidrez (2008) found that stigma prevented 65% of their survey respondents from contemplating that they had such problems. Because many African Americans are uninformed about what mental illness is and how it

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek” Barack Obama. The question is always asked does the media reflect the reality of society, or does society try and imitate the reality shown by the media? There are a number of stereotypes associated with African Americans in our society such as African American men are athletes, rappers, criminals, deviant, streetwise, uneducated, and unemployed just to name a few. African Americans in the media have changed through the years. The history of African Americans on TV or minorities in general is hampered by the racial conflicts and segregation that are embedded in American society. Historically, black actors have been grouped stereotypically and assigned to comedy. This has often been traced to the genre of black minstrelsy that was popular in the early 20th century.

In a study titled, “The Legacy of Tuskegee and Trust in Medical Care: Is Tuskegee Responsible for Race Differences in Mistrust of Medical Care?” researchers tried to determine whether the Tuskegee study was the most prominent influencer of Black mistrust in health care, or if it is more critically affected by historical associations of medical abuse imposed on Black bodies. Researchers conducted a survey with a sample population of 277 African Americans and 101 Whites living in Baltimore. The subjects had their knowledge of the Tuskegee study assessed by 6 questions, 5 of which had one factually correct answer. The final question asked participants if they believed a similar study would be possible to conduct in the present day. Mistrust in

Historically black colleges and universities, otherwise known as HBCUs, have played an integral role in advancing the education of underprivileged black teenagers since their inception after the American Civil War. They have had students extremely well known in their fields today, such as billionaire entertainer Oprah Winfrey, the first African American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. Though their graduation rates tend to be around 1 in 3, they have produced a majority of successful African American professionals. For the continued advancement of African Americans, HBCUs are necessary for offering educational opportunities that their students had been historically denied and presently out of financial reach, while promoting strong family values and equality that may be lacking at traditional schools and displaying positive African American role models in their alumni and staff.

Discrimination and the differential quality of medical care African-Americans receive are seen in all levels of professional healthcare workers. The differential treatments are ultimately affecting African-American lives due to the pertained racial divide and continued racism that is engrained in American society. The accumulation of racial biases reflects societal norms and it’s problems, and the increase skepticism African-Americans have towards health care – leading to more health disparities, more preventable diseases, and ultimately more death. Many studies from medical professionals and personal medical visits from patients have shown that their claims of African-Americans facing lesser quality and differential treatment are valid, whether these patients are in the Emergency Department, or seen by different health care professionals.

Interpersonal trust between a physician and patient has been shown to be an important determinant of care. Greater interpersonal trust has been found to be a significant predictor of acceptance of recommended care, satisfaction with care, loyalty and satisfaction with the physician, self-reported health improvement and willingness to give the physician control in the relationship. A negative attitude toward health care professionals among many African Americans, as a result of stigma, religious beliefs, distrust of the medical profession, and communication barriers may contribute to African Americans’ wariness of mental health services. Deep-rooted fears that are engrained have also affected the percentage of African American that seeks health

The trans-cultural nursing theory can be applied to come up with a professional development program of care for African Americans with mental illness. This can be done by application of the trans-cultural nursing concepts. It focuses on comparative study of cultures with regard to similarities and differences in health, care and patterns of illness according to beliefs, cultural values, and practice of different cultures in the whole world and the use of the knowledge to provide nursing care that is universal to all people. The goal of the trans-cultural nursing is to offer care that congruent with cultural beliefs, cultural values and practices specific to the culture of the people involved. Key concepts of trans-cultural nursing include; acculturation, culture, cultural competence, cultural awareness, cultural imposition, cultural sensitivity, discrimination, diversity and stereotyping (McFarland & Wehbe-Alamah,