Book: Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities

Book Title:

Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities: Promoting Equity and Culturally Responsive Care Across Settings.

Author(s): Monnica Williams (PhD), Daniel C. Rosen (PhD), and Jonathan W. Kanter (PhD) (Editors).

Year: 2019.

Edition: First (1st).

Publisher: New Harbinger.

Type(s): Paperback and Kindle.

Synopsis:

Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities offers concrete guidelines and evidence-based best practices for addressing racial inequities and biases in clinical care.

Perhaps there is no subject more challenging than the intricacies of race and racism in American culture. More and more, it has become clear that simply teaching facts about cultural differences between racial and ethnic groups is not adequate to achieve cultural competence in clinical care. One must also consider less “visible” constructs-including implicit bias, stereotypes, white privilege, intersectionality, and microaggressions-as potent drivers of behaviours and attitudes.

In this edited volume, three leading experts in race, mental health, and contextual behaviour science explore the urgent problem of racial inequities and biases, which often prevent people of color from seeking mental health services-leading to poor outcomes if and when they do receive treatment. In this much-needed resource, you’ll find evidence-based recommendations for addressing problems at multiple levels, and best practices for compassionately and effectively helping clients across a range of cultural groups and settings.

As more and more people gain access to services that have historically been unavailable to them, guidelines for cultural competence in clinical care are needed. Eliminating Race-Based Mental Health Disparities offers a comprehensive road map to help you address racial health disparities and improve treatment outcomes in your practice.

Book: Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society

Book Title:

Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society: A Multidisciplinary Handbook.

Author(s): Suman Fernando and Frank Keating (Editors).

Year: 2008.

Edition: Second (2nd).

Publisher: Routledge.

Type(s): Hardcover, Paperback, and Kindle.

Synopsis:

This new edition of Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society is an authoritative, comprehensive guide on issues around race, culture and mental health service provision. It has been updated to reflect the changes in the UK over the last ten years and features entirely new chapters by over twenty authors, expanding the range of topics by including issues of particular concern for women, family therapy, and mental health of refugees and asylum seekers.

Divided into four sections the book covers:

  • Issues around mental health service provision for black and minority ethnic (BME) communities including refugees and asylum seekers.
  • Critical accounts of how these issues may be confronted, with examples of projects that attempt to do just that.
  • Programmes and innovative services that appear to meet some of the needs of BME communities.
  • A critical but constructive account of lessons to be drawn from earlier sections and discussion of the way ahead.

With chapters on training, service user involvement, policy development and service provision Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society will appeal to academics, professionals, trainers and managers, as well as providing up-to-date information for a general readership.

Examining the Ethnic & Migration-Related Differences in the Use of IAPT-Based Psychological Treatment

Research Paper Title

The association of migration and ethnicity with use of the Improving Access to Psychological Treatment (IAPT) programme: a general population cohort study.

Background

Common mental disorders (CMD), such as depression and anxiety, are an important cause of morbidity, economic burden and public mental health need. The UK Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme is a national effort to reduce the burden and impact of CMD, available since 2008.

Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine ethnic and migration-related differences in use of IAPT-based psychological treatment using a novel epidemiological dataset with linkage to de-identified IAPT records.

Methods

Data from a psychiatric morbidity survey of two South East London boroughs (2008-2010) were individually-linked to data on IAPT services serving those boroughs. The researchers used Poisson regression to estimate association between ethnicity and migration status (including years of UK residence), with rate of subsequent use of psychological treatment.

Results

The rate of psychological treatment use was 14.4 cases per thousand person years [cases/1000 pyrs, 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) 12.4, 16.7]. There was strong statistical evidence that compared to non-migrants, migrants residing in the UK for less than 10 years were less likely to use psychological treatment after adjustment for probable sociodemographic predictors of need, life adversity, and physical/psychiatric morbidity at baseline [rate ratio (RR) 0.4 (95% CI 0.20, 0.75]. This difference was not explained by migration for asylum/political reasons, or English language proficiency, and was evident for both self- and GP referrals.

Conclusions

Lower use of IAPT among recent migrants is unexplained by sociodemographics, adversity, and baseline morbidity. Further research should focus on other individual-level and societal barriers to psychological treatment use among recent migrants to the UK, including in categories of intersecting migration and ethnicity.

Reference

Bhavsar, V., Jannesari, S., McGuire, P., MacCabe, J.H., Das-Munshi, J., Bhugra, D., Dorrington, S., Brown, J.S.L., Hotopf, M.H. & Hatch, S.L. (2021) The association of migration and ethnicity with use of the Improving Access to Psychological Treatment (IAPT) programme: a general population cohort study. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. doi: 10.1007/s00127-021-02035-7. Online ahead of print.