Black, Hispanic children, youth rarely get help for mental health problems
The study used data on children under 18 and young adults 18-34 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey covering all 50 states for the years 2006-2012. It found that minorities received much less of virtually all types of menta l health care , including visits to psychiatrists, social workers and psychologists, as well as substance abuse counseling and mental health counseling by pediatricians and other doctors. The research was led by Dr. Lyndonna Marrast, who was a fellow at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance when she initiated the study. Marrast is currently assistant professor of medicine at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine in New York. The study's co-authors are Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, professors at the City University of New York at Hunter College and lecturers at Harvard Medical School. Their findings include the following: Black and Latino children made, respectively, 37 percent and 49 percent fewer visits to psyc...