Black Patients’ Mental Illness Goes Undetected

African-American patients in mental distress usually seek treatment in primary care medical settings as opposed to specialty care. This was the conclusion of a recent study conducted by Howard University researchers published in the Journal of the National Medical Association.

Black patients often may not discuss their mental problems, researchers say, and in many cases the mental disorders are unrecognized by the provider.

According to Dr. Tanya Alim, 50 percent of patients in primary care practices at the Howard University Hospital were found to have been exposed to severe, often life-threatening trauma. More than half of these individuals developed post-traumatic stress disorder, the severe anxiety disorder seen in combat veterans. More than one-third developed severe depression.

In a report to the International Journal of Bipolar Disorder, Dr. Elaine Graves found that 10 percent of the African-American population had bipolar disorder or were manic depressive, meaning they needed psychiatric treatment. Almost none of the patients received treatment for the disorders, often because the disorders were not recognized. These findings are consistent with other reports of mental disorders in general medical settings.

These studies underscore the importance of screening for mental disorders in primary care clinics and developing funding and referral systems that allow access to specialty mental health services.

The research at Howard was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health with Dr. William B. Lawson as principal investigator.

In a study examining the relationship between racial/ethnic neighborhood concentration and self-reported health, researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health found that individuals living in neighborhoods with a high concentration of Blacks were twice as likely to report poor health when compared to their counterparts living in neighborhoods with a lower concentration of Blacks.