Create a More Diverse Workforce to Improve Mental Health Disparities

As a Black woman and practicing emergency medicine physician, I have witnessed firsthand the challenges of community members and patients having mental health needs but feeling uncomfortable seeking care or lacking access to the services they need.

While everyone can be affected by mental health issues, historically marginalized communities are disproportionately impacted. Among people with mental health concerns, just 36.1% of Hispanic or Latino people and 39.4% of Non-Hispanic Black or African-American people received treatment, compared to 52.4% of Non-Hispanic White people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , Black people are also almost two times as likely as White people to visit an emergency department for mental health concerns. People who identify as LGBTQ+ are also more likely to experience mental health challenges and lack access to quality care. Many individuals use emergency services because barriers prevent them from accessing quality preventive mental health services, leaving their untreated condition to potentially escalate. I have seen the disastrous consequences of this – people waiting in emergency departments for days seeking inpatient services, worsening mental health also contributing to challenges with physical health and substance use disorders, and even worse, death.

This Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s important to acknowledge and address the barriers historically marginalized communities face when it comes to their mental health. We need to help ensure everyone has access to the mental health care they need before crises arrive. One vital way to work towards this is to cultivate a diverse mental health workforce – because representation matters and contributes to improved health outcomes.

?Representation in Mental Health Care Matters

Historically marginalized communities often face unique mental health struggles and experiences due to ongoing stress and violence related to racism and discrimination, and they have a higher risk of being negatively impacted by social and economic challenges such as poverty and food insecurity.

Though official statistics often show that historically marginalized populations have similar or lower rates of mental health diagnoses as White people, these numbers are affected by underdiagnoses due to bias, as well as lack of access to quality mental health care.?

It can be difficult to feel validated when your health care provider may not fully understand your lived experience and may have conscious or unconscious bias about your identity. Only?5% of active psychologists in the United States in 2021?identified as?Black, and nearly 8% percent identified as Hispanic, while 80% identified as White. This is not reflective of the country’s demographics and contributes to disparities.

From my own experience as a provider and a patient, I know the difference it can make when you receive care from someone who shares the same lived experiences. It helps build trust in a patient-physician relationship when you feel like you are listened to and not judged. It is also one of the reasons why I still practice emergency medicine in Detroit, Michigan, where multiple generations of my family have lived and where my patients often express gratitude and comfort knowing I am their physician.

Indeed, studies show patients from historically marginalized communities often prefer providers of their same racial identity, and some research indicates this can lead to higher patient satisfaction and improved health outcomes .

Mobilizing a Diverse Workforce to Support Mental Health

It’s critical that we create a more diverse behavioral health workforce that can understand and relate to the life experiences of their patients and address their mental health needs. Our health care system can help promote this by fostering the pipeline of clinicians from diverse backgrounds, supporting clinicians from historically marginalized backgrounds effectively during their training programs, working to diversify provider networks, leveraging virtual care, and implementing health equity training that confronts implicit and explicit bias.

?Through various initiatives at CVS Health, we continue to prioritize and address mental health disparities among historically marginalized communities, underscoring our commitment to advancing health equity.

CVS Health’s Community Equity Alliance focuses on expanding the community health worker workforce, enhancing connections between health care institutions and communities, and addressing disparities in heart health and mental health outcomes. We are currently working with Meharry Medical College, Sinai Chicago and Wayne State University to train and deploy community health workers to address mental health disparities through education, informal guidance and referrals.

Aetna Medicaid created one of the country’s first community health worker training programs offered through a Medicaid plan. Aetna Better Health of Texas Medicaid members can undergo training to prepare them to give back to their community and support their holistic health needs.

Through virtual MinuteClinic counseling offerings in select states and CVS Health Virtual Primary Care , we’re working to expand access to diverse and culturally competent care for all members and customers.

?Supporting Mental Health for All Communities

This month and beyond, let’s focus on creating more opportunities for historically marginalized communities to access mental health care. By working together, we can create a more equitable health care system. Through the power of collaboration, my hope is that one day, I’ll no longer see so many mental health crises in the emergency department. Instead, we’ll have a diverse workforce of therapists, community health workers and other health care providers who can provide culturally competent, validating and trauma-informed mental health services as part of holistic care for patients of all backgrounds across the country.