Barriers to mental healthcare for African-Americans and the importance of population-specific assessment in intervention planning and care modeling

Description

A Northwestern University Capstone Project

Abstract

Background: Mental health status affects all aspects of a persons health and well-being. There is a needfor improvement in the disparity in mental healthcare that exists in ethnic minority populations to ensureequitable healthcare for all people, including ethnically diverse populations.Aims: (1) review the existing literature on barriers to mental healthcare in a specific subset of the ethnic minority (African-Americans). (2) perform a frequency analysis of the specific barriers to accessing and receiving mental healthcarecited in the literature. (3) use the barriers identified to highlight the importance of their consideration in the development and planning for population-focused intervention and care modeling.Methods: A literature review was performed using Ovid/Medline, Pubmed, ClincalKey, and Scopus databases. Barriers to mental health care for African Americans were identified and quantified through afrequency analysis. Results: 25 barrier themes were identified through the literature review and described. Conclusions: barrier recognition and population-based planning will be essential in promoting the successof future interventions and iterations of care models.

Files

Additional details