DISPARITIES IN
MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
Cultural competence recognizes the broad scope of the dimensions that influence an individual’s personal identity. These dimensions include:
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race
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ethnicity
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language
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sexual orientation
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gender
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class/socioeconomic status
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education
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religious/spiritual orientation
Members of racial minority groups, including African Americans and Latinos, underuse mental health services and are more likely to delay seeking treatment. Consequently, in most cases, when such individuals seek mental health services they are at an acute stage of illness. This delay can result in a worsening of untreated illness and an increase in involuntary services.
Within the behavioral health system, cultural competence must be a guiding principle, so that services are culturally sensitive and provide culturally appropriate prevention, outreach, assessment and intervention.
- Cultural Competence in Mental Health
The UPenn Collaborative on Community Integration
Several studies have found that bilingual patients are evaluated differently when interviewed in English as
opposed to Spanish and that Hispanics are more
frequently undertreated.
Compared with whites with the same
symptoms, African Americans are
more frequently diagnosed with
schizophrenia and less frequently
diagnosed with mood disorders. Differences in how African Americans express symptoms of emotional distress may contribute to misdiagnosis.
