Misdiagnosis of African-Americans with psychiatric issues

Carl C Bell

Misdiagnosis of African-Americans with psychiatric issues

Carl C Bell

Institute for Juvenile Research, USA

: Int J Ment Health Psychiatry

Abstract

For the last 45 years, Dr. Bell has studied the underserved African-American population in the United States. His research has uncovered various problems of misdiagnosis in these populations. The first discovery was the misdiagnosis of African-Americans with bipolar disorder. The second major observation was the high levels of childhood trauma low-income African-American children were subject to during their development. Following that epiphany, it was demonstrated that these populations also had high levels of head injury owing to a general risk suffered by low-income populations. Most recently, he has observed the problem of exposure to prenatal alcohol as many low-income communities are inundated with liquor stores resulting in a social determinant of health that lends itself to social drinking before realizing pregnancy. This presentation will highlight the prevalence of childhood traumatic stress and how it ties in with the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood (the most prevalent of which may be neurodevelopmental disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure). In addition, a proposed criterion for developmental trauma disorder (DTD) and neurodevelopmental disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure will be presented. There will be emphasis on clinical practice skills to identify these two common problems in all populations, not just low-income African-Americans that by nature of being in high-risk contexts often herald public health problems that will affect everyone in society. Finally, the author will illustrate prevention strategies for both of these two common and intertwined problems using actual large population based data and clinical case histories.