by Ruthie Hawkins

A new report shows that schools with predominantly black student bodies routinely receive significantly less funding than their white counterparts. Does the poor education lead to mental health issues down the line? Researchers from the University of Warwick think so.
Previous investigations have led to the belief that individuals with a low standard of education are more likely to experience mental health problems. This has been attributed to the fact that people from lower socioeconomic classes often do not have access to the best standard of teaching, leading to poor emotional intelligence and problem solving skills.
Therefore, the scientists took into account factors such as wealth when conducting their study.
They also stated that a low standard of mental wellbeing did not necessarily indicate mental illness.
Researchers observed the mental well-being of 17,030 participants using data from the Health Survey For England from 2010 and 2011. The individuals were ranked with regard to a scale of ‘feeling good and functioning well’, as they believed this indicated a good state of mental health.
They found that individuals with a stronger sense of psychological well-being were significantly more likely to be happy and contented throughout their lives.
According to reports, however, when this was measured alongside the standard of people’s education, it was found that this played no marked role in influencing a person’s mental health.
‘So if low educational attainment was strongly associated with mental illness, high educational attainment would be strongly connected to mental wellbeing. But that is not the case.’
She added that the planning of mental health programmes may have to change in light of this research, as local authorities and health boards will not necessarily need to consider education as a factor in treating patients.
What’s more, the investigation also looked at the mental wellbeing of people of different ethnicities, finding that Afro-Caribbean males in particular were largely happy and contented with their lives.
Overall, mental health conditions occur in Black and African American (B/ AA) people in America at about the same or less frequency than in White Americans. However, the historical Black and African American experience in America has and continues to be characterized by trauma and violence more often than for their White counterparts and impacts emotional and mental health of both youth and adults.
Historical dehumanization, oppression, and violence against Black and African American people has evolved into present day racism – structural, institutional, and individual – and cultivates a uniquely mistrustful and less affluent community experience, characterized by a myriad of disparities including inadequate access to and delivery of care in the health system. Processing and dealing with layers of individual trauma on top of new mass traumas from COVID-19 (uncertainty, isolation, grief from financial or human losses), police brutality and its fetishization in news media, and divisive political rhetoric adds compounding layers of complexity for individuals to responsibly manage.
Unfortunately, Black and African American providers, who are known to give more appropriate and effective care to Black and African American help-seekers, make up a very small portion of the behavioral health provider workforce (see treatment statistics below). Because of these factors and more, Black and African American people are more likely to experience chronic and persistent, rather than episodic, mental health conditions. Yet, hope for recovery should remain, as light is shed on these issues – and the general public holds accountable policymakers and health systems to evolve better systems which eliminate inequities in mental health services.