...University Mental Health Care Disparities: Consequences of ineffectiveness and lack of access for minorities For ages mental illness has been seen as the ultimate curse. The mentally ill were seen as possessed, hidden from society, and never talked about. In America, it is estimated that 26.2 percent of people ages 18 and older suffer from a diagnosed mental disorder in a given year (Kessler,Chiu, Walters, & Demler, 2005). The aforementioned statistics reflect those that have sought or been forced into treatment. There are many left uncounted due to lack of access and ineffective treatment secondary to a number of reasons. Considering history, discrimination, personal perception, socioeconomic status, educational backgrounds and a host of other reasons many minority groups are reluctant to seek out treatment in what many may consider a system of mental health created and sustained primarily for the middle and upper-class White America. In fact, 60 percent of people with mental illnesses do not receive treatment (Kessler et al., 2005). The purpose of this paper is to discuss mental health care disparities in minority populations within American society, and to suggest some needed changes to close the gap in America. One quarter of all Americans meet the criteria for having a mental illness and a quarter of those have a disorder that significantly disrupts their ability to function day to day, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (2001). A citizen’s...
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...In my essay you will learn about Jamaican and Haitian culture and their outlooks on disability. Laster on you will see the comparisons between those two cultures and the American culture. I selected the Jamaican culture because it has always been a dream of mine to visit Jamaica. I selected Haiti because I am not well educated on their culture. In that Jamaican cultural concepts that influence disability originate from their religious beliefs that are related to Christianity and Afro- Christian sects. The beliefs that Jamaicans have majorly influence that way they look at disability. They believe that disability is a punishment for wrong doing. Even professionals and the educated middle class tend that a disability is a result of sin. The Jamaican people re firm believer sin the power of God who tells the difference between good and evil that happens in their daily lives. The people who partake in sin or commit a wrongful act will result in punishment. If this person partakes in these actions their off spring will result in negative effects, in their case a disability. ( Stone, 98) Families in Jamaica do not like it when the public knows that there is someone in the family has a disability. They do not want to be shamed upon. Some neighbors might know that the child has a disability, however they will not have direct contact with them or a close view of the child. People who believe that disabilities are a natural cause are often considered sophisticated in the Jamaican society...
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...According to the text “Rural Poverty: The Great Recession, Rising Unemployment, and the Under-Utilized” written by Jennifer Sherman cultural norms greatly affect a families capability to deal with and “survive” poverty are influenced by the families cultural norms. The families are also affected by the history of rural communities that are small and have close communities. The history can affect the choices and options a family has available to them. “Structural causes of poverty” are what most “Academic researchers” believe is important. Structural causes of poverty can be the shift of the economy, policies, and “racism and labor markets”. “Neoliberal ideologies” have greatly affected what people understand about cultural causes of poverty in the rural parts of the United States. They have lead to people seeing cultural poverty as an individual issue and blaming the individuals. It has added to the “stigma” to the problems and issues that rural Americans are challenged with (Sherman 524). People who live in poverty suffer the stigma of being “lazy, immoral and dependent upon “entitlements” (Sherman 525)....
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...indeed an over presentation of black service users especially males. From the previous numerous studies about the disparities in mental health there is little evidence that shows that any significant changes have been made to narrow the gap therefore this study might be a one step towards bridging that gap. Hopefully the key outcome of this study will help professionals to make more accurate assessments and treatments of ethnic minority patients. It is anticipated that the outcome of this study will help nurses implement a more cultural sensitive approach when caring for people from ethnical background. By working with family and carers nurses will be able to gain insight into different cultures, beliefs and traditions so that when making assessments the family will be able to tell them what is normal and abnormal in their culture. 1.3 Background For many decades there have been many different studies, debates, criticisms complaints in the UK, America and other countries regarding the increase in schizophrenia diagnosis in black Caribbean population compared to the white population. In the UK, the frequency in diagnosis of schizophrenia in Black Caribbean is 6-8 times higher in comparison to the White population (Hickling 2005) Previous research have indicated that African and Caribbean patients had less desirable route of access to psychiatric services than white patients and often are detained compulsory under the Mental Health Act (1983), (Davies et al 1996) this was confirmed...
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...Medicalization of Marijuana The Stigma of a Miracle Drug March 25, 2014 Synopsis The following media review is based on a two part documentary which focuses on the healing qualities of medical marijuana in the treatment of Dravet’s syndrome along with a number of other illnesses. I researched the benefits of medical marijuana, specifically the medicalization of the plant and its derivatives. This includes the extraction and ingestion of cannabis oil in its pure form for the treatment of Dravet’s syndrome, a form of chronic epilepsy often found in children. This paper focuses on the history of the use of cannabis for its healing properties and provides a brief overview of the documentary which is the basis of the paper, detailing the importance of the medicalization of the cannabis plant for use in treating a number of ailments, including but not limited to the treatment of Dravet’s Syndrome and Autism in children. It was not until I watched the documentary which was recently aired on CNN entitled “Weed, Cannabis Madness” and its sequel “Weed 2” that I became interested in the healing qualities that this plant possesses and more specifically, its ability to treat children who are suffering from a condition called Dravet’s Syndrome. Dravet’s Syndrome is a form of chronic epilepsy which causes children to seize violently for upwards of 50 seizures per day. There is no cure for this disease, and for many children the drugs prescribed by their physicians such as...
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...mental illness are judged immediately. Furthermore, they find it hard to have stable jobs and maintain friendships and relationships ("Discrimination and stigma," 2013).When you have an illness, you are viewed differently—you are viewed in a negative way. This is what we call stigmatization. What results from stigma is discrimination. Negative attitudes and behaviors are no longer a surprise because when a person acts differently from the others, these negative attitudes and behaviors become common. Expressly and obviously, discrimination becomes evident when a person makes a negative remark about someone’s mental illness. It may also be implied...
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...Regan’s 1980’s warnings of “Just saying No” to duck and hide their insufficient faces in shame for simply not hitting home hard enough. According to Farber, in The Age of Great Dreams: America in the 1960s, he contends that by the late 1960s, many young antiwar activities and others who were involved in a variety of social and political movements were in open revolt against what they considered “the American way of life,” believing that the “traditional” values of American life were what had produced the war in Vietnam, racism, and a lot of other ugliness. The shock troops in this “cultural war,” at least as most Americans saw it, were the longhaired “freaks” and “hippies” of what was then called the “counterculture.” It was the counterculture, more than the antiwar movement or Black Power groups, that seemed to many older Americans to be the most threatening to their family and loved ones. Far more young people would experiment with illegal drugs and counterculture lifestyles than would ever participate in the civil rights, antiwar, or student movement (Faber, 168). The spread, lure, promotion, and open use of illegal and experimental drugs was the main reason a majority of adult Americans feared and hated the counterculture (Faber, 173). The hippies did not introduce drugs to America, however it was their use of mind-altering substances without the permission of the medical establishment that seemed to cause the most...
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...Social workers must have a vast skill set to successfully work in all the different branches of Social Work. When assessing and working with clients a social worker must be sensitive and understanding of clients cultural and religious beliefs. Mental illness goes often untreated which is worsened if culturally you do not believe in it. The following case study is of a 21 year old male Abdul of Arab descent who is reportedly exhibiting erratic violent behavior towards his family. While working with Abdul and his family the social worker must always be ready to educate the clients on possible issues, which will not be an easy task when working with people from different cultures, whom will have different costumes. It is vital to understand that...
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...Within America, oppression of people of color has been integrated within society since the founding of the colonies. Within America, this means that policy changes have been put into place since the Civil Rights Movement to try to change how people of color are treated within America, but this appears to not be enough. The types of policies that could be put into place to further the objective of racially unifying America would be racial bias training, profiling prevention and cultural competency training. This is because many of the issues that are being felt within the communities of people of color are founded in a lack of understanding or bias that individuals have with others that are different. The issue is that with this type of policy...
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...Using two contemporary examples, explore Goffman’s thesis on the ‘stigmatized body’. The ancient Greeks used stigma to refer to a fault used to expose something unusual about a person’s moral status, a person bearing this stigma would often be described as a blemished person, ritually polluted, and to be avoided, especially in public places. Christians later divided the metaphor into two separate aspects; the bodily signs of holy grace and the medical allusion, which refers to the bodily sigs of physical disorder. Today the term is described using the original literal sense. (E., Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, 1990)Erving Goffman describes stigma as “the process by which the reaction of other’s spoils normal identity (Nettleton, 2006). The three forms of stigma recognised by Goffman are; mental illness, a physical form of deformity or an association with a particular race, religion or belief. (E., Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, 1990). Sociologist, Gerhard Falk defines stigma based on two categories; existential stigma and achieved stigma. He describes existential stigma as “a stigma deriving from a condition which the target of the stigma either did not cause or over which he has little control”. He describes achieved stigma as “stigma that is earned because of conduct and/or because they contributed heavily to attaining the stigma in question.” (Falk, 2001). The two stigmatized bodies that I will discuss are; the transsexual body and the...
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...factors about this virus contribute to making it spread faster, become deadlier, and leaves no one unaffected. HIV/AIDS reaches the young and the old, the rich and the poor, and those in developed and undeveloped countries. Education about the virus and how it is approached to different people also affects how it is spread, several cultural factors come into play as to how effective it is in preventing future contraction of the virus. The cultural perceptions of the virus also affect how the virus is researched and how medicines are developed for it. Religion also plays a role in how the virus is spread and can have an impact on how those who are researching the disease research it. The spread of HIV/AIDS is affected by several factors the main ones being the approach of education taken, cultural perceptions of the disease, and religion. Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a disease in 1981 (Kshatriya, 2005, pg. 69). Before 1981 it was found in the Caribbean and in African countries but it wasn’t until those first cases in the United States were diagnosed that the disease was officially recognized. HIV/AIDS exploded in America in the early 80’s, and initially they thought that AIDS was a “gay disease” and called it GRID standing for “gay related immune disease” (Lovell, 2011, pg. 111). This caused an initial stigmatization of the disease due to the association with homosexuality. Later cases of HIV/AIDS were found in intravenous drug users and their...
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...Then imagine it is looked down upon to have an injury. That cut on the arm is a sign of weakness and that broken leg is a tell tale sign of evil. Now imagine that the cut is a cut to the ties of past friends, family and culture- one’s entire support system. The broken leg is a broken spirit from the life left behind. Yet still, these injuries are not valued as real. In Farah Ahmedi’s Other Side of the Sky, an Afghani girl who lost both of her legs to a land mine tells her story of coming to America. At the end of the novel when she and her mother are living in America, Farah describes her mother becoming an empty shell. She is mourning the loss of her tight knit family she left behind and the culture she knows and understands. It is clear that becoming an immigrant has deeply affected Farah’s mothers mental state and well being. In fact, immigrants coming to America face many barriers that make them more susceptible to mental illness; however, because of the stigma that surrounds mental...
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...Alcohol Control Policies in Native American Communities Devyn Vazquez Nova Southeastern University The indigenous people of North America have settled in areas across the present day United States and continue to live on and off reservations throughout America’s fifty states. Throughout Native Americans longstanding history the significant battle with alcohol has not only tarnished the culture of numerous tribes and the public perception of American Indians, but alcohol use has ruined the lives of countless people. The introduction of alcohol in Native American societies began with English explorer Henry Hudson in the early 1600’s during the exploration of what is now considered the New York City metropolitan area. The brief encounter began as an attempt to thwart any possible mischievous plans of the Mohawk chief and continues to harm the Native American people (Morris 1880). As of 2010, the United States population contains 4.1 million individuals who identify themselves as having American Indian or Alaska Native heritage. Within this population, Native Americans are six times more likely to die from alcohol related causes, have a life expectancy rate six years lower than the national average, and report heavy alcohol use almost double the other ethnicities in America (American Psychiatric Association 2010). There is never a simple solution to the complex problem of alcohol within any ethnicity and this toxic relationship is ever present in many Native American...
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...place. There are triumphant tales of kindred spirits helping those in need, of people coming together despite their differences, and of those once lost being found. However, there is another side of life that combats these positive stories with that of prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, stigmas, and hate towards those who stand out or have unique attributes. Especially when compared to our culture of power that is often white, healthy, and traditional. The following will define, describe the treatment of, and perceive the lives of two of these stigmatized groups, those with obesity and those who are LGBT, to further detail the similarities and differences of their daily struggles. One clear, thematic, distinction is the blatant external identification of obese individuals against the hidden sexual stigma of those who are LGBT. Group Definition Weight stigma is a social stigma in which those who are overweight or obese are targets of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behaviors. This stigma is present across many dimensions in our society and can be seen in interpersonal, institutional, organizational, and cultural discrimination. Alarmingly, research has discerned the weight stigma has become more prevalent in our society, as weight based discrimination has increased 66% from the 1990’s into the 2000’s (Andreyeva, T., Puhl, R. M., & Brownell, K. D., 2008). Despite this group actually being a majority across the world, they are still stigmatized and thought to be the...
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...The date was November 14, 2011. The patient was OG, a twenty-four year old male Hispanic. He immigrated to the United States when he was 5 years old from Guatemala, with his mother and he is a legal American citizen. He was brought to Aurora Behavioral healthcare on a 5150 by ex-wife and her parents due to suicidal ideation with a plan to overdose on his medications. He complained of worsening depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. He felt hopeless and had suicidal ideation prior to admission. The ex-wife reported she had received a text from the patient saying, “I need to do something before I hurt myself. You’d be better off if I were dead.” He and his wife separated in December of 2010 and the divorce was finalized in August 2011. The couple separated because of violence; they had gotten into an argument and he pushed her. His ex-wife stated OG’s depression had gotten worse over the past week. The patient said he suffered from blackouts and he couldn’t remember things that had happened. On September 21, 2011 he was arrested while working in Las Vegas for using technology to lure a minor and was in jail for 11 days. The patient said he blacks out and did not remember the incident and woke up in jail. In October of 2011 his physician NP Brantman, prescribed him trazodone, Abilify and Seroquel. He was admitted for suicidal ideation and major depression. Hispanics for the most part believe that health is...
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