Mental Health and African-American Veterans
Mental Health and African-American Veterans
April 7, 2021 | Best Practice
1. Engage in culturally-competent assessment, diagnosis, and treatment
Providers must engage in culturally-competent assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illness. Providers must practice cultural-humility and recognize their own implicit biases when treating mental health patients.
2. Understand historical determinants of medical mistrust
Mental health providers must recognize and understand the impact of historical determinants of medical mistrust on patient access and outcomes. Providers must encourage trust, such as through thorough informed consent procedures.
3. Diversify behavioral healthcare delivery
We must diversify behavioral healthcare delivery to include non-traditional care environments, such as telehealth, to increase patient engagement and access. We must leverage non-traditional care delivery to ensure patient-centered, individualized care.
4. Increase mental health provider representation
Healthcare delivery organizations must increase mental health provider representation to ensure the delivery of culturally-competent care. It is essential to ensure provider-patient racial and cultural concordance to deliver high-quality, effective mental health care.
5. Utilize high-quality, complete data to drive decisions
Providers must use representative and complete evidence-based practices. It is critical to continuously update, question, and review healthcare algorithms, assessment methods, and diagnostic procedures in mental health care.
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Joseph Gaspero is the CEO and Co-Founder of CHI. He is a healthcare executive, strategist, and researcher. He co-founded CHI in 2009 to be an independent, objective, and interdisciplinary research and education institute for healthcare. Joseph leads CHI’s research and education initiatives focusing on including patient-driven healthcare, patient engagement, clinical trials, drug pricing, and other pressing healthcare issues. He sets and executes CHI’s strategy, devises marketing tactics, leads fundraising efforts, and manages CHI’s Management team. Joseph is passionate and committed to making healthcare and our world a better place. His leadership stems from a wide array of experiences, including founding and operating several non-profit and for-profit organizations, serving in the U.S. Air Force in support of 2 foreign wars, and deriving expertise from time spent in industries such as healthcare, financial services, and marketing. Joseph’s skills include strategy, management, entrepreneurship, healthcare, clinical trials, diversity & inclusion, life sciences, research, marketing, and finance. He has lived in six countries, traveled to over 30 more, and speaks 3 languages, all which help him view business strategy through the prism of a global, interconnected 21st century. Joseph has a B.S. in Finance from the University of Illinois at Chicago. When he’s not immersed in his work at CHI, he spends his time snowboarding backcountry, skydiving, mountain biking, volunteering, engaging in MMA, and rock climbing.