Many Black adolescents do not receive the mental health services that they need. In a study published in the July 2019 issue of Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Alejandro Vázquez and Miguel Villodas investigated whether Black and White caregivers differed in their perceptions of their adolescents' need for and use of various services to address specific mental health concerns.
Black adolescents have disproportionate rates of unmet need for mental health services relative to White adolescents. This disparity can be partially explained by logistical barriers that prevent Black caregivers from engaging in mental health services, such as inflexible work schedules, unreliable transportation, and lack of child care or insurance.
Many Black caregivers also report a lack of knowledge about mental health problems and services, and have negative or inaccurate perceptions of the mental health system (e.g., distrust of mental health providers).
These informational and perceptual barriers may exacerbate disparities in mental health service utilization among their adolescents. While some have speculated that Black caregivers may prefer less stigmatizing service formats over traditional mental health counseling to address their adolescents' mental health concerns, this assertion is yet to be tested.
Vázquez and Villodas explored differences between Black and White caregivers' perceptions of need for parenting classes, psychological counseling, and youth mentoring programs when their adolescents presented with internalizing (e.g., depression, anxiety) or externalizing (e.g., aggression, disruptive) psychopathology, as well as their actual utilization of each service.
They leveraged information from 741 adolescents and their caregivers who participated in a five-site prospective study, the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). The adolescents were recruited to participate because they were identified as being at risk for abuse or neglect during early childhood.
When the adolescents were 16 years old, their caregivers provided information about their psychopathology and their perceived need for and use of each type of mental health service.
As the authors expected, Black caregivers were less likely than White caregivers to report that they needed parenting classes, or that their adolescents needed or used psychological counseling services. On the other hand, they were more likely to report that their adolescents needed youth mentoring programs when their youth had elevated externalizing, but not internalizing symptoms.
Surprisingly, there were no differences between Black and White caregivers' actual use of parenting classes or youth mentoring programs.
Vázquez and Villodas speculate that Black caregivers may view mentoring programs as a less stigmatizing or more culturally congruent service format than traditional mental health counseling, particularly for addressing aggressive and disruptive behavior problems in adolescents. However, it is possible that they do not utilize these programs as frequently as White caregivers because these programs are less accessible to them.
The authors conclude that systematically integrating evidence-based intervention strategies into youth mentoring programs could increase mental health service utilization among Black adolescents and their families. They suggest that increasing the availability of these programs could encourage their use and reduce disparities in unmet mental health need among at-risk Black adolescents.
Citation
- Vázquez, A. L., & Villodas, M. T. (2019). Racial/ethnic differences in caregivers' perceptions of the need for and utilization of adolescent psychological counseling and support services. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 25(3), 323–330. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000255
Note: This article is in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area. View more articles in the Social Psychology and Social Processes topic area.