Caregivers involved in the child welfare system often struggle with depression, yet those who are Black get the least amount of help, as revealed in a study published online this month in Academic Pediatrics.
The study found that only 42 percent of Black caregivers being investigated by the U.S. child welfare system received depression treatment within the last year, compared with 61 percent of white caregivers and 46 percent of Hispanic caregivers.
"Greater unmet mental health needs among Black caregivers may increase their risk of child welfare involvement, along with psychosocial risks (e.g., poverty) and biases in child welfare reporting and case management that collectively disadvantage Black families,” say the study authors.
The study also found that the less education a caregiver had, the less likely they were to receive depression treatment.
The lead author of the study is Dr. Hiu-fai Fong, a Staff Physician on the Child Protection Team in the Division of General Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Co-authors include Dr. Michael A. Lindsey, Executive Director of the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research; Mario Cruz-Gonzalez, an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School; William Beardslee, academic chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Children's Hospital in Boston and professor at Harvard Medical School; and Margarita Alegria, Chief of the Disparities Research Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School.
Read more about the study on NYU McSilver Institute's website. Subscribers to Academic Pediatrics can access the article, “Racial/ethnic disparities in depression treatment for caregivers investigated by the U.S. child welfare system,” online through Academic Pediatrics.
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