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Reducing Disparities in Mental Health Care: Suggestions from the Dartmouth–Howard Collaboration

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Abstract

This article presents recent collaborative efforts between the Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center and Howard University to understand (and ultimately reduce) disparities in mental health care among African Americans. Researchers from Dartmouth and Howard recently formalized a longstanding collaboration through the support of a grant aimed at understanding recovery and rehabilitation for African Americans with severe mental illness. Grant-sponsored efforts have included two seminars between multi-disciplinary mental health researchers and clinicians to inform the implementation of a collaborative research and training program. This article outlines the prominent themes arising from these seminars on the issue of health disparities agreed upon by our multi-disciplinary research team. These are (1) situating disparity research in the context of social justice; (2) understanding trends in disparities; (3) promoting a sophisticated understanding of ‘culture’ and its role in disparities; (4) critically assessing strategies that attempt to mitigate disparities; (5) developing a reflexive research agenda.

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Notes

  1. Training programs in medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School and in cultural psychiatry at McGill University exemplify this scholastic tradition.

  2. The recent study by Cook et al. (2007) that found worsening mental health disparities between 2000–2001 and 2003–2004 utilized a new methodology based on the Institute of Medicine’s definition of racial disparity. Accordingly, this analysis adjusts for health status (such as lower rates of depression found among African Americans and Latinos) and allows for socioeconomic factors to mediate racial and ethnic disparities. Cook et al. (2007) observe that this methodology improves upon previous methodologies and their findings differ from previous studies based on less rigorous definitions that do not account for health status and socioeconomic factors. They recommend the application of this methodology in future examinations of trends in mental health disparities.

  3. Diagnostic disparities persist in psychiatric settings, as Stockdale et al. (2008) found that African Americans remain less likely to be diagnosed with depression during psychiatric visits.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, 2 Whipple Place, Lebanon, NH, 03766, USA

    Elizabeth Carpenter-Song

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, 2 Whipple Place, Lebanon, NH, 03766, USA

    Rob Whitley & Robert E. Drake

  3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Howard University College of Medicine, 2041 Georgia Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20060, USA

    William Lawson

  4. Department of Sociology, Howard University, P.O. Box 987, Washington, DC, 20059, USA

    Ernest Quimby

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  5. Robert E. Drake
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Carpenter-Song.

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Carpenter-Song, E., Whitley, R., Lawson, W. et al. Reducing Disparities in Mental Health Care: Suggestions from the Dartmouth–Howard Collaboration. Community Ment Health J 47, 1–13 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-009-9233-4

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