Welcome to August’s first edition! In tandem with recent events, our article will be focused upon BIPOC to highlight and bring awareness to their struggles, the disparities they face, and their restless fight for equality. Read on below!
BIPOC Mental Health Awareness:
By Shania Ali
BIPOC (Black, Indegenious, and People of Color) is a term that is used by most people to distinguish between different types of people of color and make aware that not all minorities are faced with the same injustice. There are 17% of African Americans, 23% of Natives and Indegenious communities, 15% of Latinx/Hispanics, and 13% of Asian Americans with mental illness.
The mistrust Black and African American people have in the medical system often affects their help-seeking behavior. This mistrust can be attributed to the lack of Black and African American providers who are known for their hospitality towards their own kind. As a result, Black and African American people are more likely to experience chronic rather than episodic mental health conditions.
Native/Indegenious people are more likely to depend on a spiritual or a traditional healer rather than professional doctors as most lack the awareness about mental health and its effects. Moreover, they lack the knowledge of resources and programs that are available to them and thus fail to make use of them. Therefore, Native/Indegenious people tend to experience physiological distress 2.5 times more than the general population.
Latinx/Hispanic people have a higher chance of mental distress than other POCs due to the impacts of immigration and acculturation. Most health-care providers are unable to communicate with Latinx/Hispanic people due to language barriers; consequently, they often fail to receive sufficient treatment. Moreover, many Latinx/Hispanic people do not have access to health insurance, and many of them are forced to live with their mental illnesses without seeking medical help.
Asian Americans struggle with the stereotype of being foreigners and are often posed with disrespectful questions such as “Where are you really from?” and “How do you say this in your language?” While these questions may not seem like much, these kinds of questions reiterate feelings of loneliness and alienation among the group. Such feelings are more likely to be intense among Muslims, who are often isolated due to their unique appearance and religious beliefs. Moreover, the persistence of Islamophobia in the U.S contributes to the mental distress experienced by many Muslims. Among all Asian Americans, serious depressive episodes have currently increased from 10% to 13.6% in ages between 12-17, proving that BIPOC mental health awareness is all the more necessary today.
What we can assume from this information is that most minorities don’t have access to resources that could help them and/or lack the awareness of mental health. Not only this, but many minority groups look down upon mental health and tend to disregard it as an issue, whether this be due to family beliefs or ethnic culture. Although MHA (Mental Healthcare Association) is doing their part in educating others, the human kind must also play its part in destroying stereotypes around mental health and understanding other people’s perspectives.
BIPOC in Medicine
By Pallavi Vemuri
Systemic racism is present in almost every major institution of America: the criminal justice system, the education system, and the healthcare system. According to the National Institute of Health, people of color tend to receive lower-quality care due to economic reasons (Unequal Treatment 2020). Not only do socioeconomic barriers cause colored patients to earn less than their white counterparts, but evidence shows that—even after socioeconomic differences are taken care of—ethnicity and race can still determine how much healthcare is received.
Factors that further the unequal treatment of colored patients include stereotyping, high costs in medical care financing, unequal allocation of care, the language barrier, and a shocking lack of cultural awareness and education among medical professionals. Discrimination and prejudice can have serious consequences for patients. According to the National Library of Medicine, people of color tend to receive less care for a myriad of conditions, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, HIV, and prenatal care (Viewing 2020). This ends up impacting the mortality rates and health outcomes in certain communities.
Though the first oath in medicine is to do no harm, the blatant disregard for people of color has been a part of the healthcare system for a while. Between the 1930s to 1970s, government-sponsored American researchers forcefully sterilized Puerto Rican women to test a birth control pill. This displays a striking disregard for the autonomy of a person of color and is just one of the extreme violations of individual rights that the healthcare system is built on (Sterilization 2018).
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 specifies that race, color, and national origin may not be used to deny a patient medical treatment. Nonetheless, 56 years later, we find the healthcare system infected with the same stereotyping and systemic racism that plagues the rest of society (Systemic 2016).
Works Cited:
BIPOC Mental Health Awareness:
MHA. “BIPOC Mental Health.” MHA National, http://www.mhanational.org/
bipoc-mental-health. Accessed 5 Aug. 2020.
BIPOC in Medicine:
AR; S. (n.d.). Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care.
Retrieved August 05, 2020, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25032386/
S; R. (n.d.). Viewing Health Equity through a Legal Lens: Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Retrieved August 05, 2020, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28663181/
Sterilization of Puerto Rican Women: A Selected, Partially Annotated Bibliography (Louis de
Malave, 1999). (n.d.). Retrieved August 05, 2020, from
https://www.library.wisc.edu/gwslibrarian/bibliographies/sterilization/
Z; F. (n.d.). Systemic racism and U.S. health care. Retrieved August 05, 2020, from
Medical Wonders 