The Epidemiology of Mental Illness in Afro-Americans
Donald H. Williams M.D.1
1 The Department of Psychiatry of Michigan State University, A223 East Fee Hall, East Lansing, Michigan 48824
The epidemiologic study of mental illness among Afro-Americans has progressed since the antebellum period when the rate of mental illness among free Afro-Americans living in the North was inflated to justify continued slavery. Community-wide surveys conducted after World War II demonstrated that when socioeconomic variables were controlled, the rate of mental illness among Afro-Americans was no higher than that of other groups. The rates of mental illness and substance abuse of Afro-Americans vary according to socioeconomic class and are also related to differential family structure, early performance in school, and antisocial behavior of fathers. Despite progress, undersampling of middle-class Afro-Americans and poor, unemployed, young, urban Afro-American males are consistent deficiencies of surveys that even the ambitious NIMH Epidemiologic Catchment Area Program seems to share.
Note:
This special section contains six papers covering important issues in black psychiatry, ranging from epidemiological studies of mental illness in black populations to factors that shape black children's self-concept and promote or damage their mental health. Ezra E. H. Griffith, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, is guest editor of this special section.
