"A significant amount of research documents racial and ethnic disparities in mental health access and service utilization among children and adolescents.  Existing literature in clinical psychology describes barriers that youth and families who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) face in accessing mental health services (Planey et al., 2019) and primarily focuses on client and provider barriers. However, more attention should be drawn to historical and systemic factors that uphold barriers and maintain inequities in mental health access and utilization.  As such, to conceptualize the current state of mental health service utilization for BIPOC youth and families, many view disparities through a lens that includes consideration of structural and institutional racism in the mental health system. It is through this understanding and subsequent work that we can begin to dismantle inequitable systems and improve access to and utilization of mental health ser vices for BIPOC youth and families" (Metzger et al., 2023).

“U.S. colleges and universities are facing what many have referred to as a “campus mental health crisis”. Recent years have been marked by high and rising prevalence rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems in college populations. A substantial body of research has focused on the mental health needs of students on 4-year campuses. Yet, even as research on college mental health has proliferated, gaps remain in knowledge around the mental health of community college students” (Lipson et al., 2021).

Many students are lacking the access to mental health care whether in K-12 or college. Cultural bias and lack of familiarization with student's environment, clinicians may reluctantly provide services. "Given limitations to multicultural training in mental health graduate education, as well as the realities of racial socialization in whiteness, white clinicians may not be equipped or familiar with interacting with BIPOC youth on issues concerning ethnicity, culture, and racism. Thus, in addition to lack of familiarity with diverse cultural norms, white providers often lack awareness of structural and environ mental discrimination that BIPOC youth, their families, and their communities experience. These clinicians may be naïve to the ways environmental factors (e.g., racial discrimination) may negatively impact BIPOC mental health, and thus are less likely to consider these factors in diagnostic and treatment processes" (Metzger et al., 2023).

Furthermore, college students are at a statistical disadvantage of receiving health care treatment. According to Silverman & Teachman (2022) research on The relationship between access to mental health resources and use of preferred effective mental health treatment, "Individuals with more (vs. less) education were more likely to report current treatment use. Individuals who were Black/Latinx (vs. non‐Latinx White) or who lived in a community with fewer (vs. more) providers sometimes had a lower probability of accessing preferred effective treatment, though results varied across implicit and explicit measures. Findings highlighted the need to increase access to mental health resources among marginalized groups."

Lipson et al., (2021) conducted the largest national study of prevalence and use of treatment services among college students. In this study, it was concluded that "Community college students, particularly those from traditionally marginalized backgrounds, were significantly less likely to have used services, compared with students on 4-year campuses. Financial stress was a strong predictor of mental health outcomes, and cost was the most salient treatment barrier in the community college sample."

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Kouyoumdjian, H., Zamboanga, B. L., & Hansen, D. J. (2003). Barriers to community mental health services for Latinos: Treatment considerations. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 10(4), 394–422. https://doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bpg041

Lipson, S. K., Phillips, M. V., Winquist, N., Eisenberg, D., & Lattie, E. G. (2021). Mental health conditions among community college students: A national study of prevalence and use of treatment services. Psychiatric Services, 72(10), 1126–1133. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202000437

Metzger, I. W., Turner, E. A., Jernigan-Noesi, M. M., Fisher, S., Nguyen, J. K., shodiya-zeumault, shola, & Griffith, B. (2023). Conceptualizing community mental health service utilization for BIPOC youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 52(3), 328–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2023.2202236

Silverman, A. L., & Teachman, B. A. (2022). The relationship between access to mental health resources and use of preferred effective mental health treatment. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 78(6), 1020–1045. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23301

Wells, K., Miranda, J., Bruce, M. L., Alegria, M., & Wallerstein, N. (2004). Bridging community intervention and mental health services research. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(6), 955-963.