Annually in February, the United States honors the frequently overlooked histories and contemporary contributions of African Americans during Black History Month. According to the Library of Congress, the roots of this awareness month go back to 1915 due to the efforts of historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson, who chose February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
In relation to mental health, the importance of recognizing the history and trauma connected to this country’s chattel slavery and systemic racism cannot be overstated. The Mental Health America website shares some stark statistics:
- African Americans comprise 12% of the U.S. population and 33% of the prison population, an overrepresentation reflecting racist arrests and policing as well as racist sentencing practices in the criminal justice system.
- Bias and segregation in professional fields continues to affect wealth gaps, where the median savings of blacks are on average just 21% of the median savings of whites.
- Historical adversity, which includes slavery, sharecropping, and race-based exclusion from health, educational, social, and economic resources translates into socioeconomic disparities experienced by Black and African American people today. Socioeconomic status, in turn, is linked to mental health: people who are impoverished, homeless, incarcerated, or have substance use problems are at higher risk for poor mental health.
- Blacks and African Americans are less likely than white people to die from suicide at all ages. However, Black and African American teenagers are more likely to attempt suicide than White teenagers (9.8 percent v. 6.1 percent).
Toward the bottom of this page on the Mental Health America website is a list of mental health resources geared specifically to African Americans and the continuous challenges caused by persistent inequality.
To close, I’m sharing a link that showcases some Black pioneers in mental health, as well as links to Grand Rounds we hosted with two internationally known black leaders in mental health. In March 2021, Altha Stewart, MD, presented on Structural Racism, Academic Psychiatry and Lifelong Learning - The Path Forward for American Psychiatry and on Oct. 18, 2023 Ruth Shim, MD, MPH presented on Social (In) Justice and Mental Health, based on her book of the same title that is a part of our residency education program.