Medscape (6/20, Lowry) reports, “Racial-ethnic disparities in the use and adequacy of mental healthcare exist and have even increased over time,” according to a study published in the June issue of the journal Psychiatric Services. “A comparison of 1990 and 2003 national data showed that disparities in the use of any mental healthcare increased, particularly between white and black Americans who used mental healthcare in primary care and between whites and Latinos who used specialty settings.” The study authors theorized that “the growing white-black and white-Latino disparities in receiving specialty mental healthcare could be due to the lack of psychiatrists and psychologists from racial-ethnic minority groups.”
