Advancing Mental Health Equity

Voices of multiple women of color from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds come together in this book to critically examine the roots of mental health disparities and chart actionable, culturally grounded pathways toward health equity.

Blending empirical research with knowledge from underrepresented communities and the authors' own experiences, this book addresses the complex social, cultural, and structural factors that lead to increased mental health disparities among people of color, including racist and colonial systems and ideologies that have historically dominated the field and suppressed communal knowledge and traditions.

Contributors adopt liberatory, decolonial, womanist, and antiracist approaches to rebuild trust with these underserved communities and combat health inequities in research and practice. They offer practical strategies for working collaboratively with communities and engaging with existing strengths, including traditional ways of knowing and healing.

Community-based participatory research, integrated care, and utilizing community health workers are among the many methods they highlight. The contributors also emphasize the importance of confronting racial trauma directly and dismantling oppressive systems.

Developing more diverse leadership within the psychology workforce is also a key emphasis, with chapters identifying current programs and future directions for ensuring that marginalized communities play a more prominent role in guiding the field towards are more equitable future.

Contributors

Series Foreword
Stacey L. Williams

Acknowledgments

Foreword: Advancing Mental Health Equity Through Scholarship, Leadership, and Community Partnership
Jennifer F. Kelly

Introduction: Women of Color Psychologists’ Role in Reducing Mental Health Disparities to Help Achieve Health Equity
Kisha Braithwaite, Anne Saw, Melissa Tehee, and Margarita Alegria

Part I. Fundamental Issues for Advancing Health Equity

• Chapter 1. Reducing Mental Health Stigma in Communities of Color
  Salome Nikki Cockern, Sonya Shropshire-Friel, Sharonne Herbert, Jessica Mitchell-Corsino, Felicia Heywood, and Rakale C. Quarells
• Chapter 2. Research as Healing: Relational, Culturally Grounded Methodologies for Advancing Health Equity
  Melissa Tehee, Elizabeth Grace Wong, Lee Pradell, and Devon S. Isaacs
• Chapter 3. Our Culture Is Our Strength: Exploring Culturally Centered Prevention and Treatment Strategies for Youth of Color
  Idia Thurston, Fairlee C. Fabrett, and Puja Patel
• Chapter 4. Kicking Down Fence Posts: Integrated Care as a Strategy to Promote Health Equity and Reduce Health Disparities
  Eboni Winford

Part II. Community Engagement and Building Trust With Diverse Communities

• Chapter 5. Stepping Into Sacredness: Indigenous Knowledge, Trauma Healing, and the Indian Country Child Trauma Center
  Dolores Subia Bigfoot
• Chapter 6. All My Relations: Community-Led Transformation to Achieve Equity
  Kee J. E. Straits and Nadine Tafoya
• Chapter 7. An Equity-Centered and Community-Engaged Research Approach to Promoting Health and Resilience for Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Communities
  Anne Saw, Aggie J. Yellow Horse, Lan N. Ðoàn, Stella S. Yi, Janice Y. Tsoh, Raynald Samoa, Simona C. Kwon, Nia Aitaoto, and David T. Takeuchi
• Chapter 8. The Role of Community Health Workers in Reducing Mental Health Disparities and Advancing Mental Health Equity 
  Mara Xiong and Margarita Alegria

Part III. Leadership as a Pathway to Promote Health Equity

• Chapter 9. Leadership Development for People of Color: The CONREPA Leadership Development Institute
  Alvin N. Alvarez, Rita M. Rivera, and Kinjal Panchal
• Chapter 10. The Role of the White Clinician Working With Communities of Color: Multilevel Anti-Racism Efforts to Effectively Conceptualize and Treat Trauma and Stress-Related Symptoms
  Margaret Powers, Shequanna Belizaire, Natalie Watson-Singelton, Sharon Rachel, Joshua Omade, Abigail Lott, and Yara Mekawi
• Chapter 11. Honoring Our Ancestors, Strengthening the Future: Indigenous Feminist Mentoring Across Generations
  Melissa Tehee, Julii Green, Erica Ficklin, Devon Isaacs, and Carolyn Barcus

Appendix A. Overview of Selected Exemplar Psychological Health Equity Initiatives

Appendix B. Selected Scholarly Book Citations and Academic Journal Article Citations That Uplift Mental Health and the Brilliance of Women of Color

Index

About the Editors

Kisha Braithwaite, PhD, MSCR, is a counseling psychologist and the director of the Kennedy-Satcher Center for Mental Health Equity at Morehouse School of Medicine, where she also serves as professor and director of research and scholarship in psychiatry and behavioral sciences as well as professor in community health and preventive medicine. She has coedited multiple books on resilience and public health equity among Black women and men, and she serves on the editorial board for Health Psychology. Dr. Braithwaite has dedicated her career to promoting mental health and wellbeing among diverse families through research, intervention, and policy reform.

Melissa Tehee, JD, PhD, is an associate professor at Utah State University (USU) in the Department of Psychology and director of the American Indian Support Project. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Her clinical and research interests address trauma across the life span, focusing on bias, prejudice, and racism; health disparities; and domestic violence and other traumas experienced by American Indians and other minoritized communities. Her interdisciplinary training allows her to consider the convergence of these topics with law and policy. Other interests include the dissonance of the APA Ethics Code with culture, multicultural competence, and mentoring.

Anne Saw, PhD, is an associate professor of clinical and community psychology in the Department of Psychology and an affiliated faculty with the Global Asian Studies program at DePaul University. Her research is at the intersection of health and mental health in Asian American communities, focusing on structural, community, and sociocultural factors and how to improve wellbeing and promote healing. Dr. Saw serves as an associate editor for the American Journal of Community Psychology, consulting editor for Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, and guest editor for two special issues of the Asian American Journal of Psychology.

Margarita Alegría, PhD, is the chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Mongan Institute; the Harry G. Lehnert, Jr., and Lucille F. Cyr Endowed MGH Research Institute chair; and a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She has spent her career examining how to reduce health disparities for minoritized populations, immigrants, and linguistic minorities. She was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2011. Among other awards, she received the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry.