BIPOC Mental Health Month Week 4

Stephanie Weatherly, DNP, PMH RN-BC, FACHE

Chief Clinical Officer

July 20, 2021

This is the last full week of BIPOC Mental Health Month, so let’s make it count! Language is important. The words we use as professionals drive the care we provide and the outcomes we achieve. You might have noticed that most people have moved away from calling it ‘Minority Mental Health Month.’ Why? Here is what Mental Health America shared on the subject:

The continued use of “minority or marginalized” sets up BIPOC communities in terms of quantity instead of quality and removes their personhood. The word “minority” also emphasizes the power differential between “majority” and “minority” groups and can make BIPOC feel as though “minority” is synonymous with inferiority. Though “minority” and “marginalized” may continue to be used in academic spaces, the words the mental health community uses need to change to help.

One of the ways we reduce stigma is through language choice. This week let’s look at American Indians and Alaska Natives’ mental health statistics.

According to the US HHS Office of Minority Health:

Mental and Behavioral Health - American Indians/Alaska Natives

• In 2019, suicide was the second leading cause of death for American Indian/Alaska Natives between the ages of 10 and 34.
• American Indian/Alaska Natives are 60 percent more likely to experience the feeling that everything is an effort, all or most of the time, compared to non-Hispanic whites.
• The overall death rate from suicide for American Indian/Alaska Native adults is about 20 percent higher than the non-Hispanic white population.
• In 2019, adolescent American Indian/Alaska Native females, ages 15-19, had a death rate that was five times higher than non-Hispanic white females in the same age group.
• In 2018, American Indian/Alaska Native males, ages 15-24, had a death rate that was twice that of non-Hispanic white males in the same age group.
• Violent deaths, unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide, account for 75 percent of all mortality in the second decade of life for American Indian/Alaska Natives.

These statistics, as well as the ones shared in previous weeks, are staggering. If you are like me, you wonder what I can do about it?

A great starting-off place is this website. It has great training, toolkits, webinars, and much more!

Additionally, last week the Joint Commission released a Quick Safety bulletin providing guidance on reducing heath disparity for diverse populations. Here is what they suggest for initiating and implementing change:

1. Leadership makes equity a strategic priority within your institution. This requires leaders to leverage policies and practices that embrace anti-racism both within and beyond the hospital walls, nurture partnerships and professional pipelines within communities, and intentionally address adverse social determinants of health.

2. Use a social intervention framework, such as CMS’ AHC model (mentioned above), to help identify the needs of your patient populations. The AHC model focuses on screening in 5 domains: housing instability, difficulty paying utility bills, food insecurity, transportation, and interpersonal violence. Your patient populations may have higher needs in some of these domains and lower or no needs in others. When needs in the community are identified, incorporate referrals to community resources and patient navigation (typically through a community health worker or patient navigator) in the social intervention framework you decide to use.

3. Create a strategic plan for community outreach. The plan should begin with an understanding of your organization’s culture, mission, vision, and values and an understanding of the patient populations that your organization serves. Identify opportunities to partner with the community and determine the level of involvement your organization would like to have with the community.

4. Support the local workforce. Organizations should make an effort to hire entry-level positions persons from their communities and provide advancement and professional development opportunities. This could potentially develop a pipeline for marginalized groups into health care professions, fostering career advancement and professional development for all employees.

Check out the website resources offered here today, and let me know what you learned!