Racial disparity refers to differences that may or may not be connected to discrimination. Rawal, Anderson, Romansky, and Lyons admit that there are racial disparities in the delivery of behavioral health services (2008). Health services disparity refers to “differences in treatment or access not justified by the differences in health status or preference of the groups” (Alegria, Vallas, & Pumariega, 2010, p. 760). Generally speaking psychiatric problems have been undertreated in the United States (US) but for racial/ethnic minorities their rates of even lower for mental health treatment compared to their counter parts White Americans (Kohn-Wood & Hooper, 2014). Examples include African American and Hispanic youth utilize health …show more content…
Additional evidence of racial/ethnic disparities in mental health care is in a study done by the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Survey Program the authors found that “individuals with depressive disorders, about 40% of non-Hispanic White patients had not received treatment, compared to about 59% of Black American, 64% of Latino American, and 69% of Asian American patents” where n = 8,000 participants (Kohn-Wood & Hooper, 2014, p.175). There are protective factors that reduce the risk for mental illness in ethnic and racial minority children and adolescents they include having a positive school environment, a good home environment, there are positive youth-parent interactions, there are high levels of social support, parental monitoring is present, and there are positive peer interactions (Alegria, Green, McLaughlin, …show more content…
An example of lack of culturally appropriate services is that mental health services may not reflect the culture or the values of the family such as their being a bias in assessment techniques, there is a limited focus on strength-based approaches, and there is a disregard for alternative medical approaches (Holm-Hansen, 2006). The role of poverty refers to such things as lack of insurance coverage, accessibility to quality services is reduced in high poverty areas, and poverty has an indirect influence of other aspects of accessibility for example, not being able to attend treatment because lack of transportation or parent/guardian has to work and there in no one else who can take the child for treatment (Holm-Hansen,