Members of ethnic minorities have been viewed as being and encouraged to be stronger than their white counterparts for a long time and in numerous ways, encouraging the pre-existing hyper-independence in the community of people of colour,  which can often work to our detriment. 

 

In the study into ‘The influence of implicit bias on treatment recommendations for 4 common pediatric conditions: pain, urinary tract infection, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and asthma’, the findings show that ‘Pediatricians' implicit (unconscious) attitudes and stereotypes were associated with treatment recommendations’ and that ‘prescribing narcotic medication decreased for African American patients but not for the White patients’ - ‘Pediatricians' implicit attitudes about race affected pain management’. Even in the medical field, stereotypes about people of colour being tougher in suffering have been enforced, further intensifying the stigmas that POC (people of colour) cannot be vulnerable and must be strong at all times.

 

Although many POC have had to display greater levels of strength and resilience in comparison to some of their white counterparts over time, the reality is that nobody is able to be strong all the time and everyone has tough periods, despite your race, ethnicity, gender or ability.

 

Cultural relativism is a belief that social standards are reflective of their location - if mental health is heavily stigmatised in a particular community, those beliefs would be the norm for those people who were a part of that culture. These stigmas can be passed down through generations, conditioning people to live by these ideas.

 

Unfortunately, numerous cultures still follow the stigmas about mental health and wellbeing, including those that say people are ‘weak’ when they express that they are struggling and those that say that people who have a roof over their heads and food everyday cannot possibly struggle with mental health issues. Mental illness is widely seen as a taboo topic in many non-westernised cultures, and often being open about it can be associated with self-victimisation and attention-seeking.

 

Often we group all mental health together, ignoring the fact that mental health can manifest and be viewed differently in and for everyone - it can be harder for some people to be open about their true feelings. For example, some people who are a part of non-westernised cultures may have repressed their feelings so much that they find it nearly impossible to be open about them when asked. This is due to the ideas about mental health that their culture has caused them to have, making them a product of the social norms of their environment. 

 

Moreover, it is significant to acknowledge that it may be more difficult for some people to be more open about their mental wellbeing due to this conditioning, and hopefully as a population we can start to have a more open communication surrounding how to reverse the ideologies embedded within some people’s minds about mental wellbeing.

 

Renee Okoroafor-Ossai, St Philomena’s 

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Bias in Treatment Study:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22420817/

 

Links to Websites to further educate about mental health in POC communities:

https://www.blackmindsmatteruk.com/

https://sharingvoices.net/

https://www.baatn.org.uk/