Depression and anxiety spiked among black Americans after George Floyd’s death [WashingtonPost.com]

Jane Stevens 6/13/204:27 PM

Americans were already struggling with historic levelsof mental health problemsamid the coronavirus pandemic. Then came the video of George Floyd’s death at the hands of police.

Within a week, anxiety and depression among African Americans shot to higher rates than experienced by any other racial or ethnic group, with 41 percent screening positive for at least one of those symptoms, data from the Census Bureau shows.

The findings — from a survey launched by the federal government originally intended to study the effects of the novel coronavirus— indicate that the recent unrest, demonstrationsand debate have exacted a disproportionate emotional and mental toll on black and Asian Americans, even as rates of anxiety and depression remain relatively flat among white Americans and decreased among Latin Americans.

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Elizabeth Prewitt PACEsConnection writerStaff

This is such an important story. At the very end, the article addresses both the need for mental health services in minority communities and the need to go beyond that by addressing the cause of trauma. The final statement is by Wizdom Powell, director of the University of Connecticut’s Health Disparities Institute:

Minority communities, experts said, often have the greatest need but the least access to the country’s mental health-care system.

“We also need to think beyond just patching up the wounds,” Powell said. “You can’t just address the trauma. You need to address the cause of the trauma, and that is the structural and systemic racism in the first place that sparked these protests and everything else we’re seeing now.”

6/14/206:32 PM

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