Advancing EDI in advocacy

APA’s advocacy priorities reflect the association’s strategic commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and encompass the guiding principles of nondiscrimination, health equity, and health promotion across the lifespan. Recent results include:

• Robust advocacy to expand the Minority Fellowship Program
• Engaging psychologists in state LGBTQ+ advocacy
• The Black youth mental health crisis
• Population health, climate change, and environmental justice
• Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander health research
• Global policing of people of African descent
• NIH Scientific Workforce Diversity Strategic Plan

In May 2022, members of APA’s governance were invited to participate in a three-part advocacy training series exploring the different skillsets needed to engage effectively in grassroots advocacy.

With the continued work in Congress on a mental health package and fiscal year 2023 funding bills, psychologists will have an opportunity to utilize their newly acquired advocacy skills. The Advocacy Office will assist psychologists completing the training series in scheduling virtual Hill meetings to urge Congress to:

• Enact key provisions of the Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act (H.R.1475/S.1795), important legislation which aims to address disparities in mental health care among underserved and high-poverty communities
• Increase federal funding for maternal mental health

APA’s Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI) launched the Bias, Stigma, and Discrimination Initiative in late 2021 to focus attention on public policy, racism, and mental health. The Bias, Stigma, and Discrimination Initiative will continue APA’s decades-long investment in social justice advocacy. With this new area of focus, BAPPI asked public interest committees to dedicate time and effort to the following goals:

• Advance EDI and APA’s racial equity efforts
• Foster collaborative engagement across public interest committees
• Align work of BAPPI and its committees with the APA strategic plan
• Promote opportunities for APA member engagement in federal, state, and local advocacy

Research on the psychological underpinnings of racism shows that when people of color experience racism, discrimination, and/or microaggressions—whether personally, vicariously, or collectively—it affects both their mental and physical health. These experiences can lead to racial trauma or race-based stress whether these threats present themselves in the form of harm and injury, humiliating and shaming events, or witnessing racial discrimination directly. Making structural change and building resilience on an individual and community level in response to these stressors is essential to collective well-being.