The central aim of this study is to estimate prevalence, ages of onset, severity, and associated disability of anxiety disorders among African Americans, Caribbean Blacks, and non-Hispanic whites in the U.S.
This study examines the demographic correlates of psychological distress and psychological well-being among older African American and black Caribbean adults.
Visibly black people of African and African-Caribbean descent (black people) are 2-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses than their counterparts from other ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom. However, the symptomology of psychotic illnesses and dissociative experiences are difficult to differentiate. Interestingly, black people detained under the Mental Health Act are more likely to give perceived racism as the cause of their emotional distress than their counterparts from other ethnic groups, but there is very little indication in the literature as to how perceived racism might exert its effect on black people's mental health.
Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, Black people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK continue to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and over-represented within the mental health care system. The reasons why remain illusive; however, some researchers have begun asking whether racism plays an integral part. Given that Black people often given racism as a contributing factor to their mental state, and the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, this study examined the relation between mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism and dissociative experiences as evidence of a trauma-related response.
