Racism breeds trauma. What happens when mental health care makes it worse?

Over the past year, we have witnessed America struggle to confront its deep-rooted legacy of racism.

Images of police brutality against Black people have been deemed newsworthy. The world is getting a front row seat to the injustices that have been faced by Black people for decades. This is compounded by the fact that Black families have disproportionately mourned the losses of loved ones to COVID-19. The unemployment rate for Black Americans is over 1.4 times higher than the national average. Black people's wages are significantly lower, too.

These harsh realities have taken a toll on some Black people's mental health. Even when Black treatment-seekers gain access to mental health care, many have to deal with the systemic racism that pervades the discipline.

It's becoming increasingly urgent that we address health inequity and remake our mental health infrastructure in the name of equity and justice.

It's difficult to look at the yawning racial disparities in mental health diagnosis, treatment and outcomes and not conclude that there is a problem. Black mothers are more likely to suffer from postpartum depression than white mothers yet they're less likely to receive treatment.

Black teenagers are 50 percent more likely than white teens to develop symptoms of bulimia. Yet, clinicians are far more likely to identify disordered eating symptoms as problematic in white patients than in Black ones.

Compared to the population as a whole, Black patients are also less likely to be offered either medication therapy or psychotherapy from a mental health professional. Two studies from 2016 found that therapists were less likely to give appointments to new Black patients than new white ones.

These inequities are even more troubling considering the unique mental health challenges Black Americans face, largely as a result of historical adversity and socioeconomic disparities rooted in racism. Black adults are more likely to experience feelings of sadness, hopelessness and worthlessness than their adult white counterparts. Black teenagers, meanwhile, are more likely to attempt suicide than white teens.

In other words, systemic racism not only undermines Black mental health, it impedes access to quality, timely mental health care — and thereby exacerbates the psychological costs of this societal ill.

One cause of these inequities is the lack of diversity in the mental health profession. According to the American Psychological Association, 84 percent of the nation's psychologists are white. Yet demand for mental health professionals from non-white populations is projected to grow by 24 percent by 2030.

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