Mental Health Service Use Among African-American Emerging Adults, by Provider Type and Recency of Use
Abstract
Objective
This study examined factors associated with mental health service utilization among African-American emerging adults, specifically, when services were used (recency) and the types of providers visited (mental health versus non–mental health).
Methods
Guided by the behavioral model for vulnerable populations, secondary analysis of responses to the National Survey of American Life (2001–2003) was conducted. A nationally representative sample of African-American emerging adults, ages 18–29 (N=806), were assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. “Evaluated need” was determined by endorsement of mood, anxiety, substance use, or impulse control diagnoses. Respondents who reported a need for services for emotional or substance use problems were considered to have a “perceived need.” Those who reported voluntary use of mental health or general medical services to address these problems were considered to have utilized services.
Results
Twenty-five percent of the sample utilized services in their lifetime, whereas 9% utilized services in the past 12 months. Females were more likely than males to utilize services in three of the four service use categories (lifetime, mental health sector, and non–mental health sector). Respondents with an evaluated need for services were two to 12 times more likely to have used services compared with those without a need for them.
Conclusions
Little is known about why African-American emerging adults underutilize mental health services. Being female and having an evaluated need for services were associated with greater odds of service use, which would suggest the need for additional examination of gender differences in service utilization and greater mental health outreach and education among African-American males.
More than 23 million U.S. adults age 18 years and older who experience mental illness never utilize mental health services (1–4). Research indicates that being African American or an emerging adult (age 18–29) is further associated with decreased mental health service utilization compared with older African Americans or Caucasians of any age (5–9). African-American adults utilize outpatient mental health services at half the rate of Caucasians (6,9,10), and emerging adults are less likely than adults age 26 and older to utilize services, with utilization rates of 40% or less compared with 62%−71%, respectively (5,7,8,11–14). African Americans (4,9) and emerging adults (14,15) are more likely to seek mental health services from providers outside the mental health sector, such as general physicians and religious or spiritual advisors.
Gender, need for services, and access to health insurance have been found to influence mental health service use among African Americans (6,16–18) and emerging adults (5,14,19). Less is known about the factors that facilitate or hinder service use among a specific subset of these groups, African-American emerging adults (20,21). This gap in the literature is concerning given that African-American emerging adults are an especially high-risk group because of combined influences of disproportionate burden of mental illness experienced by African Americans (4) and their greater likelihood of experiencing persistent illness once diagnosed (22,23). Compared with older adults, emerging adults of any race or ethnicity are at increased risk for the onset of severe mental illness (7,19,24–26), with three-fourths of all lifetime cases of mental illness beginning by age 24 (8). Although few studies have sought to examine specific rates of mental illness among African-American emerging adults in particular, complex interactions between age and race have been noted (27). Findings from the Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study indicate that African-American emerging adults had higher 12-month rates of major depression compared with other racial-ethnic and age groups (27).
Although the exact prevalence of mental illness in this population is unclear, the fact remains that African-American emerging adults are at risk of experiencing mental illness and are less likely than other groups to seek mental health services when needed (9,28). Untreated mental illness often leads to serious personal and societal consequences, many of which are disproportionally experienced by African-American emerging adults. This population has lower college graduation rates and higher rates of homelessness and unemployment compared with Caucasian emerging adults (29–31). The disproportional rate of these issues among African Americans may be attributed to differences in social positioning and other social determinants compared with Caucasians (27,32). However, given the potentially cumulative vulnerabilities of the impact of race and age on incidence of mental illness for African-American emerging adults and their quality of life (4,27,33), it is crucial to examine factors that may increase utilization of mental health services in this population.
This study used the behavioral model for vulnerable populations to explore mental health service use among African-American emerging adults (34). This model posits that predisposing factors (sociodemographic factors), enabling factors (resources that facilitate service use), and need factors (evaluated or perceived need for services) may predict service use in vulnerable populations. This study used eight predictor variables of service use commonly cited in the literature and drawn from the model. For example, predisposing factors, such as being female (17), more educated (17), and employed (35), are associated with increased service use. Enabling factors, such as mental health insurance coverage (6,17), higher perceived emotional support (36), and lower perceived racial discrimination (6), have been found to improve the likelihood of mental health service use. Having an evaluated need or a perceived need for services has been cited as the strongest predictor of service use (37).
To further address the dearth of literature on this topic, this study focused exclusively on African-American emerging adults and used a nationally representative sample to examine within-group differences that may influence service utilization in this group. To date, most research investigating service use provides comparisons by either race-ethnicity or age (1,8); therefore, it has been difficult to clearly ascertain the factors that facilitate or hinder service use in this specific subgroup. Thus the objective was to determine the association of predisposing, enabling, and need factors with mental health service utilization among African-American emerging adults.
Methods
Sample
This study analyzed data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL). It is a multistage, integrated national household probability sample of 6,082 English-speaking African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and non-Hispanic Caucasian adults, age 18 years and older and residing in the continental United States. Data were collected between February 2001 and March 2003 and focused on mental disorders and formal or informal service use among racial-ethnic minority groups (27,38). This study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) at the University of Michigan. A determination of exemption was later obtained from Washington University in St. Louis’ IRB. Further details of the NSAL can be found elsewhere (27). For the purposes of this study, a subset of the African-American respondents from the original NSAL adult interviews was analyzed: emerging adults ages 18 to 29 (N=806).
Measures
Mental health service utilization.
Respondents were asked whether they had ever seen a professional for problems with their emotions, nerves, or use of alcohol or drugs and whether they had ever talked to a general medical doctor or any other professional about their problems with a specific disorder (such as depression, panic disorder, substance use, or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]). They were also asked a series of questions about talking to a professional (including a psychiatrist, family doctor, social worker, counselor, or religious or spiritual advisor) about their mental health.
Service use over the lifetime and in the past 12 months was assessed. Respondents who reported having used mental health services in their lifetime were asked whether they had sought help from psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, counselors, or mental health nurses in the mental health sector or from family doctors, any other medical doctors, any other health professionals, religious or spiritual advisors, and any other healers in the non–mental health sector.
Independent variables.
The author examined the following sociodemographic correlates of mental health service utilization: gender, education (≤11 years, 12 years, 13–15 years, ≥16 years), and employment status (employed, unemployed, or not in labor force). Respondents indicated whether they had private (through their employer’s or their family’s insurance), public (including any federal government health insurance programs), or no mental health insurance. Perceived emotional support was determined with three items asking how often family members (other than spouse or partner) “make you feel loved and cared for, listen to you talk about your private problems and concerns, and express interest and concern in your well-being.” Possible responses were very often, fairly often, not too often, and never. These answers were reverse coded to generate a scale of perceived emotional support, with higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived emotional support. Cronbach’s alpha for this three-item index was .74.
Perceived racial discrimination was assessed with the Major Experiences of Discrimination scale (39). Respondents were asked whether they had ever experienced nine major episodes of discrimination (for example, being unfairly discouraged by a teacher from continuing with education, being unfairly fired, or being unfairly stopped, searched, questioned, or physically threatened or abused by the police). For each of the nine discrimination events experienced, respondents were asked to identify one main reason for the discriminatory experience. Reasons included ancestry or national origins, gender, race, age, height or weight, and shade of skin. For this study, the variable of interest was whether the respondent identified race as the primary reason for any discriminatory experience. This variable was coded as a dichotomous variable, with a value of 1 indicating the respondent had experienced at least one discriminatory experience based on race and a value of zero indicating no racial discriminatory experiences. Cronbach’s alpha for this item was .67.
Evaluated need was determined with the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (WHO-CIDI), a comprehensive, fully structured interview designed to be used by trained lay interviewers for the assessment of mental disorders according to the definitions and criteria of the DSM-IV (27). Consistent concordance between the CIDI and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV has been shown in individual and aggregate-level analyses (40). Respondents were asked questions about physical and emotional well-being in their lifetime (for example, “Have you ever in your life had an attack of fear or panic when all of a sudden you felt very frightened, anxious, or uneasy?”). If they answered yes to specific screener questions, respondents were asked additional questions about the specific disorder to further determine whether they met the DSM-IV criterion for the disorder. If the respondent met the criterion for a particular disorder, he or she was considered “endorsed” for the disorder.
Endorsement of at least one DSM-IV diagnosis type was then grouped into one of four categories: mood disorders (major depressive episode, dysthymia, mania, bipolar disorder types I and II), anxiety disorders (agoraphobia without panic disorder, agoraphobia with panic disorder, panic disorder, panic attacks, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety disorder, and adult separation anxiety), substance use disorders (alcohol abuse and dependence and drug abuse and dependence), and impulse control disorders (any binge eating, ADHD, and oppositional defiant disorder).
Perceived need was assessed by one item asking “Was there ever a time during the past 12 months when you felt that you might need to see a professional because of problems with your emotions or nerves or your use of alcohol or drugs?”
Statistical analysis
Bivariate logistic regressions were conducted. Separate multivariate logistic regressions were constructed to assess the independent associations of each predictor variable with mental health service use by recency of use and provider types seen. All analyses were performed with the survey command in Stata 12.1/SE (41), which accounted for the complex multistage clustered survey design of the NSAL sample, unequal probabilities of selection, nonresponse, and poststratification to calculate weighted, nationally representative population estimates and standard errors. All percentages reported were weighted for the NSAL-only sample.
Results
As shown in Table 1, the mean age of respondents was 23.5 years, a majority (66%) were women, and nearly three-fourths (72%) were employed. Nearly half (44%) were high school graduates, and less than one-tenth (8%) were college graduates. Forty-seven percent of the sample endorsed at least one type of DSM-IV diagnosis in their lifetime, whereas 28% of the sample endorsed at least one type of DSM-IV diagnosis in the past 12 months. Conversely, only 5% of the sample perceived a need for mental health services in the past 12 months.
| Characteristic | N | %a |
|---|---|---|
| Age (M±SD) | 23.5±3.5 | |
| Gender | ||
| Female | 531 | 65.9 |
| Male | 275 | 34.1 |
| Education | ||
| Some high school | 186 | 23.1 |
| High school graduate | 356 | 44.2 |
| Some college | 196 | 24.3 |
| College graduate | 68 | 8.4 |
| Employment status | ||
| Employed | 581 | 72.1 |
| Unemployed | 135 | 16.8 |
| Not in labor force | 90 | 11.2 |
| Mental health insurance coverage | ||
| Private | 231 | 31.3 |
| Public | 133 | 18.0 |
| None | 375 | 50.7 |
| Perceived emotional support (M±SD)b | 9.99±2.2 | |
| Perceived racial discrimination (≥1 event) | 257 | 31.9 |
| Evaluated need | ||
| Lifetime | 372 | 47.1 |
| Past 12 months | 219 | 27.7 |
| Perceived need | 38 | 5.1 |
| Mental health service utilization | ||
| Lifetime | 200 | 24.8 |
| Past 12 months | 74 | 9.2 |
| Mental health sector | 79 | 9.8 |
| Non–mental health sector | 33 | 4.1 |
a
All percentages are weighted.
b
Possible scores range from 4 to 12, with higher scores indicating higher levels of perceived emotional support.
With adjustment for all other variables, gender, educational attainment, and need increased the likelihood of mental health service utilization (Table 2). Among respondents who had utilized services in their lifetime, women were twice as likely as men to utilize services (odds ratio [OR]=1.9). Having an evaluated need was significantly associated with increased likelihood of service use compared with those who did not have a need (OR=8.7). For past 12-month utilization, respondents with an evaluated need were 12 times more likely than those without an evaluated need to have utilized services (OR=12.3).
| Lifetime use | Past-12-month use | Mental health sector | Non–mental health sector | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Variable | OR | 95% CI | OR | 95% CI | OR | 95% CI | OR | 95% CI |
| Female (reference: male) | 1.9*** | 1.3–2.8 | 1.0 | .4–2.3 | 1.7* | 1.0–3.0 | 3.1* | 1.0–8.6 |
| Education attained (reference: some high school) | ||||||||
| High school graduate | .8 | .5–1.4 | .9 | .3–2.9 | .8 | .4–1.5 | 3.9 | .6–6.1 |
| Some college | 1.4 | .7–2.5 | .9 | .2–3.6 | .9 | .5–1.7 | 9.1* | .8–11.0 |
| College graduate | 1.1 | .4–3.1 | 1.0 | .9 | .3–2.6 | 1.9 | .3–4.1 | |
| Employment status (reference: employed) | ||||||||
| Unemployed | 1.0 | .5–1.8 | .7 | .2–2.8 | .9 | .3–2.6 | 2.8 | .7–4.1 |
| Not in labor force | 1.2 | .5–2.8 | 1.1 | .3–3.9 | 1.6 | .6–4.4 | .7 | .3–2.8 |
| Mental health insurance coverage (reference: private) | ||||||||
| Public | 1.0 | .5–2.1 | .6 | .2–2.1 | .7 | .3–1.8 | 2.2 | .8–2.6 |
| No insurance | .5 | .5–1.4 | .6 | .2–1.6 | 1.0 | .5–2.2 | 1.1 | .6–1.6 |
| Perceived emotional support | 1.0 | .9–1.1 | 1.0 | .7–1.3 | 1.0 | .9–1.1 | 1.0 | .8–1.1 |
| ≥1 perceived racial discrimination event (reference: no perceived discrimination) | .9 | .5–1.6 | .8 | .3–2.6 | .8 | .3–1.8 | 1.2 | .5–3.3 |
| Evaluated need (reference: no need) | 8.7*** | 4.8–15.5 | 12.3*** | 3.7–40.6 | 3.4** | 1.5–7.9 | 102.9*** | 13.0–846.0 |
| Perceived need (reference: no)a | 1.5 | .4–5.3 | ||||||
a
Perceived need was included only in the past-12-month use analysis.
*p≤.05, **p≤.01, ***p≤.001
Women were almost twice as likely as men to have sought treatment from mental health sector providers (OR=1.7), whereas persons with an evaluated need were three times more likely than those without an evaluated need to have seen providers in the mental health sector (OR=3.4). Being female (OR=3.1), attending some college (OR=9.1), and having an evaluated need (OR=102.9) were significantly associated with increased likelihood of utilization of non–mental health sector providers.
Discussion
This study sought to discover the factors that predict mental health service utilization by recency of use and by provider type. Results indicated that being female, attending some college, and having an evaluated need were associated with increased likelihood of utilizing mental health services. These results are consistent with previous research, which has found that among African Americans (17) and emerging adults (42) women were more likely than men to utilize services in general and to utilize more formalized mental health services. This gender difference in service use could be explained by prior literature indicating that African-American emerging adult men were more likely to rely solely on informal support when seeking assistance (43).
Higher educational attainment, including number of years in college (44), has been associated with greater likelihood of receiving mental health services among African-American emerging adults (17). It is possible that this study’s results reflect respondents who were currently in college and utilizing services as well as those who may be more open to seeking services based on insight gained while in college. Consistent with previous literature (16,35,37), evaluated need was significantly associated with every mental health utilization category. This finding indicates that among this sample of African-American emerging adults, individuals who needed services were, to some extent, utilizing them.
This study showed that employment status and mental health insurance coverage were not significantly associated with increased odds of any mental health service utilization. Although most of the sample was employed, almost half (51%) did not have mental health insurance coverage. Previous research of the association of employment with mental health service use has been contradictory (11), whereas having health insurance coverage has been found to be a strong predictor of service utilization among African Americans in general (6,17,45). Although these factors have been found to be associated with service use among other populations, this study’s results support prior findings that need is, in fact, the strongest predictor of service use (16,37).
Unlike previous literature indicating that higher perceived emotional support was directly related to increased mental health service use (36,46), this study found that perceived emotional support was not significantly associated with service utilization. It is possible that respondents in this sample felt their need for services was mitigated by support from family members and that formal mental health services were no longer required (47). Perceived racial discrimination also was not associated with service use in this population. This finding could be influenced by the respondents’ age (for example, perhaps some have not yet applied for a housing lease or mortgage), or perhaps respondents have not encountered real or perceived racial discrimination in their life experiences or have not attributed a discriminatory event to racism.
These results should be considered in light of several limitations. First, the NSAL has a cross-sectional design that hinders the ability to make causal inferences about the factors that may be related to mental health service utilization in this population. Additional factors that were not asked or were beyond the scope of this study may further affect service use among African-American emerging adults. Second, only individuals who were noninstitutionalized, including college students living on campus, at the time of the survey were interviewed (27). It is possible that institutionalized individuals could provide additional information about service utilization among this population. Third, the smaller subgroup analysis (such as the respondents who sought non–mental health sector providers) led to wide confidence intervals and may have generated unreliable results (48,49). Despite having a large sample size, examination of subsets of service use can have some of the same limitations of smaller studies (27).
Recall (for example, recalling symptomatology or speaking to any professional about a problem) was also an issue with this study. Most responses were retroactive reports that happened more than a year ago, and reliability of the details of the problem or service utilization may be subject to potential recall bias (50–52).
Conclusions
This study’s findings suggest several general conclusions. Additional mental health outreach and education are needed, particularly among male African-American emerging adults. In this sample, men were consistently less likely than women to have utilized services, despite having similar lifetime evaluated need (42% versus 48%, respectively). In addition, only 5% of the sample perceived a need for services. Creative solutions incorporating social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter (53,54) may be more appropriate avenues than traditional means for improving understanding of mental illness and its symptomatology in this population, particularly given respondents’ age and access to technology.
In addition, research indicates that racial-ethnic and gender matching between client and professional may increase service utilization among male African-American emerging adults (43,55). This information is relevant to primary care physicians and other professionals who are often the first point of contact for this population. It may be necessary to make every effort to match these individuals with a provider who is racially-ethnically similar or male to increase the chances of service utilization and retention.
Similarly, outreach and education need to incorporate individualized and culturally targeted materials (56,57). Targeted materials may be helpful in reducing stigma by normalizing mental illness and providing “real-life” and relevant information specifically related to African-American emerging adults (56,58,59). Finally, it is important to incorporate available informal resources (43) that are already being utilized by this population in order to improve the likelihood of use of more specialized services as needed (31,50,60). Community facilities and businesses, such as churches, beauty salons and barber shops, and community centers, have been effective venues for outreach and services in this population (57,60,61).
African Americans, in general, experience a disproportionate burden related to mental illness (4). More specifically, African-American emerging adults could be adversely affected by cumulative vulnerabilities related to race, social positioning, age, and mental illness, which may further contribute to their being at particular risk for experiencing a poorer quality of life compared with the general population (33). Despite these potentially bleak outcomes, African-American emerging adults often have some of the lowest mental health service utilization rates compared with Caucasian emerging adults as well as older African Americans and older Caucasians (27,28). This study examined predisposing, enabling, and need factors associated with mental health service utilization among African-American emerging adults in hopes of enhancing understanding of the relationship between specific predictor variables and service use in this population. Although females and individuals with an evaluated need for services are more likely to utilize services, additional work, both in practice and research, needs to be conducted to increase awareness of mental health symptomatology and service utilization among African-American emerging adults in general, particularly among males and those experiencing mental illness.
Acknowledgments and disclosures
The preparation of this article was supported by grant 5T32MH019960-15 from the Mental Health Services Research Training T32 Fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health.
The author reports no competing interests.
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Cover: Shamrock Ranch, by Peter Hurd, 1962. Watercolor, 12 × 16 inches. New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe. Gift of the family of Edythe C. Mattone, 2005.
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Published online: 1 October 2014
Published in print: October 2014
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