Policy changes meant to improve access to mental health care are among the many notable revisions included in the Affordable Care Act. And new evidence suggests those changes did just that: A recent paper by Timothy Creedonand Benjamin Le Cook in the latest edition of Health Affairsconcludes that mental-health treatment rates for people with “serious psychological distress” increased significantly in 2014. Unfortunately, those gains weren’t equally shared, and a substantial racial gap in mental health care treatment persists.
The chart below illustrates trends in mental health care treatment in the pre- and post-2014 period. White Americans continue to receive mental-health treatment at much higher rates than other minorities. Despite dramatic increases in health insurance coverage, African Americans in particular have seen no statistically significant improvements in treatment rates.
[For more of this story, written by Dwyer Gunn, go to https://psmag.com/the-persisti...580ea91f2#.inkxxby92]
Comments (0)