[NYAPRS Enews] HU: Surgeon General Launches MH Campaign for African-American Community Tomorrow

[Harvey Rosenthal]

NYAPRS Note: It's promising that one of the first major initiatives
undertaken by new US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin is a campaign to
address the unmet mental health needs of America's African American
community. It's disappointing that the example given is an episode of
violence, rather than all the statistics showing the high number of
avoidable incarcerations and homelessness that plagues African Americans
with psychiatric disabilities. 

 

Surgeon General Launches Mental Health Campaign for African-American
Community at Howard University

Howard University News Service  February 21, 2010

 

It was a crime so heinous, so hideous, that it defied many, if not most
people's imagination.

 

A disturbed Washington, D.C., mother had apparently killed her four
African-American daughters, ages 5 to 17, and left their bodies rotting
in their home for seven months while she went about her daily routine.
The bodies were discovered during an eviction in January 2009.

 

Later, the mother, Banita Jacks, 35, told homicide detectives that she
believed demons possessed her daughters, and she was confident that they
would return from the dead when the demons died.

 

Prior to the murders, Jacks had never been recognized with or treated
for mental illness.

 

It is such cases and every day issues related to mental illness that
bring U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin to Howard University
Tuesday to kick off a national campaign to tackle mental health in the
African-American community.

 

Benjamin and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA) will bring the subject into focus at 10:30 a.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 23, in the second floor conference room of the Howard
University Cancer Center and the Towers Auditorium at Howard University
Hospital during a nationally broadcast telecast.

 

Benjamin and SAMHSA, working with the Ad Council and the Stay Strong
Foundation, will unveil three new television public service
announcements to coincide with the first HBCU National Mental Health
Awareness Day and discuss the issue plaguing African Americans.

 

The launch will be telecast simultaneously to colleges and universities
nationwide and will include an hour-long panel presentation by the
Howard University Department of Psychiatry.

 

Participants will be able to ask questions in person, via television
from their universities and through the Internet.

 

The purpose of the event is to raise awareness of mental health problems
among young adults in the African-American community, said sociologist
Donna Holland Barnes, an instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at
Howard University director of the University's Suicide Prevention
Program.

 

"Unfortunately, many African Americans do not recognize this is a
significant problem within our community," Barnes said. "We are less
likely to seek help. If we do seek help, we're less likely to comply
with treatment.

 

"The result can be fatal, and can lead to either suicide or homicide."

 

Mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia, are widespread in the U.S. and often misunderstood.
According to SAMHSA, in 2005 there were an estimated 25 million adults
aged 18 or older living with serious psychological distress, an
indicator highly correlated with serious mental illness.

 

Mental health problems are particularly widespread in the
African-American community. In 2004, nearly 12 percent of African
Americans ages 18-25 reported serious psychological distress in the past
year. Overall, only one-third of Americans with a mental illness or a
mental health problem receive care and the percentage of African
Americans receiving services (nearly 7 percent) is half that of
non-Hispanic whites.

 

The prevalence of serious psychological distress is the highest in the
adult population among 18-25-year-olds, yet this age group is also the
least likely to receive services or counseling.

 

SAMHSA's Campaign for Mental Health Recovery partners include the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institute
of Mental Health, state mental health agencies, leading researchers on
stigma and a broad coalition of stakeholders, including organizations
that represent provider organizations and consumer and family member
groups.

 

A resource guide, entitled "Developing a Stigma Reduction Initiative,"
is also a part of the campaign and is based on the evaluation and
lessons learned from the Elimination of Barriers Initiative. Copies of
the guide can be obtained by calling SAMHSA's National Mental Health
Information Clearinghouse at 1-800-789-2647.

 

http://www.afro.com/?p=610 

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