Join us tomorrow for our next Mind Matters meeting!

Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA will be speaking about achieving mental health equity at our next Mind Matters meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, February 13, 2024.

Participants will learn about how structural factors contribute to mental health inequities and core principles of community engaged research, and how it can be applied to mental health services research.

The discussion will be based on case studies of community-based, multi-level interventions delivered by peers and mental health professionals in community settings.

Dr. Hankerson is the Vice Chair for Community Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry and the Director of Mental Health Equity Research at the Institute for Health Equity Research.

If you have a case you'd like to share for consultation and support at this or a future Mind Matters meeting, please email Anitha Iyer, PhD, Course Director.

Remember that you can view recordings and slides of previous meetings on our website. Past meetings have covered treating depression and anxiety in primary care, substance use disorders, and more.

Most recently, Drs. Lauren Blau and Kimberly Mangla spoke about assessing for and managing perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, and coping with perinatal loss and infertility.

The American Psychiatric Association publishes best practices for working with a variety of diverse populations.

Their recommendations for treating Black patients call for thoughtful consideration of historical, sociocultural, and individual factors that influence how Black patients engage with health care providers and organizations.

Working towards mental health equity necessitates:

• Re-assessing professional practices to gauge how well they connect with core values of Black culture, such as family, kinship, community and spirituality. Generalized or Eurocentric treatment approaches may not easily align with these vital components of the Black community.

• Examining how perceived racial discrimination may contribute to hypervigilance, anxiety, or depressive symptoms among Black patients. It's important to recognize—and understand—personal biases in care and consider that Black patients may feel dismissed/ignored by mental health professionals who misperceive their expressions of emotion.

• Provider understanding of the experience of Black patients within the local community. Consider connecting with community organizations and leaders to learn more about the array of Black cultures within that community and opportunities to collaborate.

• Actively listening and critically evaluating each relationship to build and strengthen your alliance with patients.

• Properly screening and following through with quality assessments that utilize a bio-psychosocial model. This will help gather unabridged evaluations of patients and pinpoint the most appropriate diagnosis for patients.

• Keeping talk therapy, the center of all treatment paradigms, from the start, and then providing consistency in care. This should always be among fundamental considerations for mental health providers.

Learn more

Screening for Depression in African American Churches

There are substantial racial and ethnic disparities in diagnosis and treatment of major depression. Barriers to mental health equity in communities of color include lack of access to culturally sensitive care, costs, and a legacy of poor outcomes that have engendered significant distrust of mental health care providers and institutions.

One avenue to address these barriers is through the church and faith-based health programming. A 2015 study found it was feasible to screen for depression with the PHQ-9 in African-American churches. The prevalence of positive depression screen was high, especially among black men. Churches may be an important setting in which to identify depressive symptoms in this underserved population.

See also the Mount Sinai 2023 Psychiatry Specialty Report: Breaking Down Barriers in Access to Mental Health Treatment

Ensure your patients are aware that their insurance provider must cover behavioral health benefits with no session caps. This quick guide explains how to find treatment and services and includes information about understanding insurance coverage and benefits.

Epic users can include this information as part of the After Visit Summary by using dot phrase .behavioralhealthresourceguide.

It's no secret that there is high stigma surrounding mental health which can be incredibly harmful to people living with mental health conditions and interfere with their treatment and recovery.

The CDC offers a variety of provider resources on mental health literacy, including a CME course from the University of Texas at Austin on stigma-free communication about mental health.

Spanish language resources from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

NIMH has patient-friendly information about a variety of mental health topics in Spanish. Share this information with Spanish-speaking patients to help them understand any relevant topics or diagnoses.

Information to share with your patients: depression