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Ethnic populations: Community mental health services ten years later
Author(s) -
O'Sullivan Michael J.,
Peterson Paul D.,
Cox Gary B.,
Kirkeby Judith
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - Uncategorized
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/bf00931200
Subject(s) - ethnic group , mental health , demography , health psychology , public health , gerontology , medicine , depression (economics) , non hispanic whites , psychology , psychiatry , mexican americans , political science , nursing , sociology , law , economics , macroeconomics
In a replication of a series of studies conducted by Sue and colleagues in the mid-1970s, demographic and service data were retrieved for the Seattle-King County area from the Washington Mental Health Information System. Caucasian clients were compared against Asian, black, Hispanic, and Native American client groups, and, where possible, against the findings reported earlier by Sue. These clients were compared in terms of basic demographic characteristics, characteristics of staff providing the services, dropout rates, and average number of services received. The most notable findings are (a) that failure-to-return rates are dramatically lower for the current sample than for Sue's and not greatly different for minorities than for Caucasians, (b) that variability in failure-to-return rates is most strongly related to level of functioning and not related to minority status, and (c) that although Asian Americans still average fewer services than Caucasians (other minorities do not differ significantly), the mean number of services had increased substantially for all groups but more for minorities than for Caucasians.