The National Eating Disorder Association stated, people of color with self-acknowledged eating and weight concerns were significantly less likely to be asked by a doctor about their eating habits, even if they had the same symptoms as a white American (“People of Color”). To solve this disparity, we need to change our mental healthcare system. Systemic racism is deeply rooted in every society all across the nation, we see it in the jobs we have or the houses we own. 

My mom, Dr. Tiffany Yip, claimed that the mental healthcare system was a product of our society and if one of our societal values were to be that everyone should have equal mental healthcare, then we would have it (Yip). 

Some argue that doctors and nurses are not trained enough in medical school to be able to treat those with mental illness, since minorities in the US are more likely to live in poorer neighborhoods and live farther from quality healthcare, a solution is to transfer patients to those doctors who do know a lot of mental health care to then help them receive the appropriate care. 

One expert thinks ‘the proximity to home is less important than the good value of care’ (Scheurer). This is unreasonable because it is very easy for patient files to get lost in the process of transferring so many patients daily. If our country can barely control a pandemic, how do we think we will be able to manage this much patient transfer? Instead of this solution, we should just change our healthcare system to better educate our healthcare workers all across the nation to ensure appropriate care for all and to avoid the chaos that comes with patient transfer. 

The National Alliance on Mental Illness noticed that when it comes to treating a minority in this country doctors are likely to be biased, conscious, or unconscious, and lack cultural competency which can also steer patients away from their practices (“Black/African American”). 

The Mclean Hospital reported that 25% of African Americans seek mental health care when they need it and 40% of white Americans seek mental healthcare when they need it (“How Can We Break”). This statistic goes to show how only a quarter of African-Americans reach out for mental health care when they need it, it also goes to prove how even white Americans, less than half of them, reach out. Again, if we can make our mental healthcare resources and providers more educated, more people will be inclined to visit them, reducing the number of people who suffer in silence, black or white. 

When a survey was conducted of 8th-grade students about mental health care, 92% of all students believed that our mental health care system was bad and only 1 student thought our mental healthcare resources are good currently (Ozgen). This illustrates how the vast majority of people believe that our resources are not up to the mark yet. 

So now that we all agree that our mental healthcare resources are insufficient, for white Americans and especially for minorities, how can we change this? First, we can help educate our family and friends who work in the medical field and they can try to make a change. Also, I bet some of us already have plans to work in the medical field. Now that we are all a little bit more educated on this topic, we can better our healthcare system for ourselves and the generations to come.