Abstract
This poster showcases an educational program to increase mental health knowledge among African Americans. The purpose is to promote help-seeking behaviors, reduce stigma, and address the heightened health risks associated with this population.
Primary Author and Speaker: Nika Pierre-Paul
Contributing Authors: Diana Goodman
African Americans are less inclined to seek treatment for mental health (MH) concerns due to stigma, limited knowledge, distrust of health professionals, and racism (McMorrow et al., 2021). This project addresses the following question: Does an educational program on the benefits of mental health treatment increase knowledge within the African American population that receives care through a comprehensive primary healthcare center? Providing an educational program potentially increases mental health resources and knowledge to promote treatment-seeking, general well-being, and occupational justice for an at-risk population. The evidence illustrates a distrust for health professionals, especially mental health professionals, due to a history of undertreatment and racial discrimination in health care (Jalloh et al., 2022). The study design is mixed methods with self-created pre- and post-survey data. Participants will be recruited from a federally qualified primary healthcare center. They must fit within the criteria of being 18 or older, identifying as African American, Black American, Afro-Caribbean, or Afro-Latino, English-speaking, and have access to the internet and an electronic device. The self-created surveys data will be collected and analyzed with Microsoft Excel to measure changes in MH knowledge. This evidence-based project uses descriptive statistics to measure the percent change in patients' knowledge. Thematic analysis will be used to code and form themes from open-ended survey results. This project could foster occupational justice for minority populations by addressing mental health and engaging in healthy occupations. Occupational therapy practitioners play a significant role in advocating for appropriate treatment of minority populations. In conclusion, this project holds potential to impact other communities by increasing mental health knowledge, healthy occupational engagement, and overall great daily success for the African American population.
McMorrow, S., Hancher-Rauch, H., Ohmit, A., & Roberson, C. (2021). Community-led mental health promotion for people of color in the United States. Mental Health & Prevention, 22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2021.200203
Jalloh, M., Stompanato, J., Nguyen, J. Q., Barnett, M. J., Ip, E. J., & Doroudgar, S. (2022). Barber motivation for conducting mental health screening and receiving mental health education in barbershops that primarily serve African Americans: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 10(5), 2417–2422. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-022-01420-5