"disruptive" or depressed? Psychiatrists reach out to teens of color
ATLANTA — Dr. Brittany Stallworth was in fifth grade when she received her first suspension. She and four girlfriends had worn lime green shirts to school to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls, whose favorite color was green.
" We were accused of doing the," Dr. Stallworth recalled recently. They were among a handful of black children at their private school outside Detroit. Later that day at home, his parents warned her: "You have to understand how people are going to interpret things, how you're going to be perceived."
Two decades later, Dr. Stallworth is a resident in Psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine, where she is part of a team of mental health specialists, led by Dr. Sarah Vinson, that focuses on the needs of low-income children and adolescents of color, groups often overlooked in today's adolescent mental health crisis.
All on Tuesdays, the team runs a clinic from the 15th floor of an elegant skyscraper in downtown Atlanta. There they conduct telehealth visits with young patients and then among themselves discuss symptoms, diagnoses and medications, if any, to be prescribed.
De such dedicated care — with patients seen in depth, over the years — is unusual for all but the most fortunate. According to a 2017 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, a quarter of communities in the top 25% income bracket in the United States have a practicing mental health specialist. In contrast, among the poorest income quartile, only eight percent of the lowest income communities have such a practice. Across the country, the burden is often shouldered by time-pressed school counselors and primary care physicians.
The shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists is the more acute in low-income communities of color, according to a study published in September in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which concluded that “decisive action is urgently needed.” Among black teens, self-reported suicide attempts rose 80% between 1991 and 2019, far outpacing increases in other racial groups, according to a 2021 paper that relied on 183,500 US high school students. United States.
ATLANTA — Dr. Brittany Stallworth was in fifth grade when she received her first suspension. She and four girlfriends had worn lime green shirts to school to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls, whose favorite color was green.
" We were accused of doing the," Dr. Stallworth recalled recently. They were among a handful of black children at their private school outside Detroit. Later that day at home, his parents warned her: "You have to understand how people are going to interpret things, how you're going to be perceived."
Two decades later, Dr. Stallworth is a resident in Psychiatry at Morehouse School of Medicine, where she is part of a team of mental health specialists, led by Dr. Sarah Vinson, that focuses on the needs of low-income children and adolescents of color, groups often overlooked in today's adolescent mental health crisis.
All on Tuesdays, the team runs a clinic from the 15th floor of an elegant skyscraper in downtown Atlanta. There they conduct telehealth visits with young patients and then among themselves discuss symptoms, diagnoses and medications, if any, to be prescribed.
De such dedicated care — with patients seen in depth, over the years — is unusual for all but the most fortunate. According to a 2017 study published in JAMA Psychiatry, a quarter of communities in the top 25% income bracket in the United States have a practicing mental health specialist. In contrast, among the poorest income quartile, only eight percent of the lowest income communities have such a practice. Across the country, the burden is often shouldered by time-pressed school counselors and primary care physicians.
The shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists is the more acute in low-income communities of color, according to a study published in September in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, which concluded that “decisive action is urgently needed.” Among black teens, self-reported suicide attempts rose 80% between 1991 and 2019, far outpacing increases in other racial groups, according to a 2021 paper that relied on 183,500 US high school students. United States.
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