African American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence: Building Equity in Responses to Substance Use Disorders, Mental Health and More

By Alex Skov
ATTC Network Coordinating Office

As the past year’s public health crisis has raised our consciousness of the effects of historic inequities on the physical and behavioral health of African Americans, it has also demonstrated again and again that the need for accessible and culturally responsive services far exceeds our capacity. For example:

• In 2019, 6.5 million African Americans in the U.S. reported having first-hand experience with a substance use disorder, mental illness, or both, according to data collected by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This marked a 10.1 percent increase over 2018.
• Similarly, overdose deaths caused by synthetic opioids have risen sharply among Black Americans during the past decade, with fentanyl-related overdose deaths climbing nearly 1,000 percent from 2013 to 2016 alone, per the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has further complicated these issues for racial and ethnic minority groups as it became more challenging to access mental health and substance use treatment services throughout 2020 and the first half of 2021.

As the country strives to return to its pre-pandemic normalcy, the African American Behavioral Health Center of Excellence is prepared to help transform behavioral health services for African Americans by endeavoring to making these services safer and more culturally appropriate and responsive while also improving accessibility and effectiveness.

“When we in behavioral health look at the racial, ethnic, gender and sexual minorities who often suffer from poor mental health outcomes, we sometimes need to dig deeper to see all the factors that are driving that,” the Center’s Principal Investigator Dawn Tyus said. “Yes, the inaccessibility of high-quality care is a significant problem, but that problem is being compounded by the taboo or stigma attached to needing or receiving...click on View Resource to read the full article.