Mental illness in blacks: an overview, and treatment approaches

Provisions for inner city mental health services must recognize the association between poverty, discrimination, and related social and physical conditions and disproportionately high rates of severe mental disorder-a transcultural phenomenon.Program emphasis should therefore be on the prevention, early recognition, prompt and effective treatment and rehabilitative care of psychosis. The total spectrum of psychiatric services is required for this, and thus an opportunity is afforded for necessary training and research.Poverty has negative impact on general health and cognitive development as well as on self-esteem, self-care, and the ability to utilize medical and health services. This contributes to a vicious, intergenerational poverty cycle.Primary prevention of mental illness, where possible, depends at present on socioeconomic change. Secondary prevention, ie, timely, appropriate treatment, is effective, but requires patient access to and acceptance of all indicated modalities of care.