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Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

Minority Mental Health Awareness Month is observed each July. In 2008, Congress officially designated it as Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, named for the Black author and mental health advocate who spent the last years of her life working to reduce stigma around mental illness in Black and other communities of color.

The three goals Congress attached to the designation are direct: improve access to mental health treatment, increase public awareness about mental health issues in minority communities, and use Campbell's name to expand awareness of the specific barriers BIPOC communities face. July exists as a distinct observance precisely because May's Mental Health Awareness Month, while national in scope, has historically centered white experiences of mental illness and white pathways to care.

For Black Americans, the treatment gap documented in May is the core problem. Less than half of Black adults who need mental health care receive it. A 2023 KFF survey found that while 50% of white adults in fair or poor mental health had received treatment in the prior three years, only 39% of Black adults had. The barriers are structural, cultural, and provider-side simultaneously.

Structural: insurance coverage gaps, cost of therapy, and geographic concentration of mental health providers in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods. Cultural: stigma within Black communities that frames therapy as a white or weak-person's tool, distrust of a medical system with a documented history of overdiagnosing Black men with schizophrenia and underdiagnosing depression. Provider-side: the extreme scarcity of Black mental health professionals, meaning most Black patients who do seek care see providers with limited cross-cultural training.

Bebe Moore Campbell's specific insight, which made her advocacy powerful, was that healing happens in community first. Peer support, faith-based counseling, and culturally grounded group therapy are all legitimate and effective entry points into mental health care for Black people who do not start with a therapist's couch.

The data, plainly

What you can do this month

For individuals: - Look up one Black therapist in your area this month. Even if you are not ready to book an appointment, knowing one exists reduces the activation energy when you are. Use Therapy for Black Girls, Therapy for Black Men, or the Association of Black Psychologists directory. - If therapy feels out of reach, peer support through NAMI's free peer-led support groups is a legitimate starting point. Many groups now meet virtually. - Learn Bebe Moore Campbell's story. Her book "72 Hour Hold" is a portrait of Black family life in the context of serious mental illness, and it is still taught in mental health advocacy circles. - If you are a faith community leader, consider hosting a mental health information session this July. Research consistently shows that Black adults are more likely to seek mental health information through churches than through clinical settings. - Support Mental Health America's BIPOC Mental Health Month campaign or NAMI's fundraising for community mental health programs.

For providers: - July is a good time to audit whether your patient panel's Black and minority patients are receiving depression and anxiety screening at the same rates as white patients. Screening disparities frequently precede treatment disparities. - Review SAMHSA's cultural competency resources for minority mental health, which are updated for this observance annually.

Resources

Sources

  1. NAMI: Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month
  2. CDC: Prioritizing Minority Mental Health
  3. Mental Health America: BIPOC Mental Health Month
  4. Office of Minority Health, HHS: Mental and Behavioral Health -- Black/African Americans
  5. Steinberg Institute: Recognizing Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

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