New DLSPH Course Focuses on Black Mental Health
September 2/2021
A groundbreaking new DLSPH course starting this Fall will explore Black mental health from a public health perspective, amid mounting evidence that the COVID pandemic has had inequitable effects on the wellbeing of racialized Canadians.
The course, Fundamentals of Black Mental Health, is the first at the University of Toronto to examine the specific racialized challenges, and most effective treatments and interventions, related to addiction, mood and anxiety disorders, dementia and psychosis among Black people.
Prof. Akwatu Khenti
Photo credit: Adam Coish
“All of the post-slavery societies have constructed a racialized experience in which Black people have increased mental health pressures,” says Asst. Prof. Akwatu Khenti, who developed the course and will teach it. “There’s added stress from the slavery-based stereotypes and stigmas that exist around Black phenotypes, beauty, intelligence and morality.”
Perceived dangerousness is also an ever-present source of stress and/or distress for men of African descent.
In countries of the Caribbean and Africa, rates of schizophrenia are the same as in high income countries , Khenti points out. But Black populations in the West suffer higher rates of this serious mental illness – evidence that racism influences even diseases considered exclusively genetic in nature. And in Ontario, psychiatrist and U of T Prof. Kwame McKenzie has found that Black populations face a 200 to 300 percent increased risk for serious mental health conditions.
Khenti and McKenzie have adapted cognitive behaviour treatment interventions (CBT) for Anglophone, Francophone and Spanish-speaking Black communities that have expanded the repertoire of depression counselling. The culturally adapated approaches add cultural and socio-economic context to better address what sociologists call ‘virtual social identities’ – the stereotypes and stigmas that influence how the racialized others are perceived by the mainstream.
They argue that cultural adaptation should be a necessity given the pervasiveness of systemic racism experiences across Black people’s lifetime. “Black children have to deal with low academic expectations, underappreciation of their beauty and giftedness that starts as early as kindergarten,” says Khenti. “It grows worse. By the time you get to high school you’re dealing with expectations of criminalization. You don’t get to do the same things white male adolescents do and get a pass.”
Khenti is concerned about the pandemic’s effect on mental health rates, particularly among Canadians who face other pressures such as inability to work from home, loss of social supports, job insecurity, home schooling and other social determinants of health. The course offers tools to support effective treatment and early interventions as well as health promotion, prevention, and harm reduction for Black communities.
Khenti and guest lecturers, including McKenzie, will teach approaches for engaging with Black communities in public health efforts to reduce mental health stigma and culturally adapted treatment approaches.
“Given huge mental health consequences of COVID-19 for Black Canadians, this course will be an essential resource for post-pandemic planning and the development of meaningful interventions,” says McZenzie.
Open to all qualified U of T students, the course is aimed at physicians, nurses, social workers, public health practitioners and policy analysts.
“The literature showing the effectiveness of culturally adapted interventions is growing,” says Khenti. “Health sciences and social work students should be learning this in school, and it should be normalized expectation for both clinical and non-clinical practice.”