Handbook of Mental Health in African American Youth

Abstract

(from the cover) This handbook fills major gaps in the child and adolescent mental health literature by focusing on the unique challenges and resiliencies of African American youth. It combines a cultural perspective on the needs of this specific population with best-practice approaches to interventions. Chapters provide expert insights into sociocultural factors that influence mental health, the prevalence of particular disorders among African American adolescents, ethnically salient assessment and diagnostic methods, and the evidence base for suggested models. The information presented in this handbook helps bring the field closer to such critical goals as increasing access to treatment, preventing misdiagnosis and over hospitalization, and reducing and ending disparities in research and care. Topics featured in this book include: (1) The epidemiology of mental disorders in African American youth; (2) Culturally relevant diagnosis and assessment of mental illness; (3) Uses of dialectical behavioral therapy and interpersonal therapy; (4) Community approaches to promoting positive mental health and psychosocial well-being; (5) Culturally relevant psychopharmacology; and (6) Future directions for the field. This handbook is intended as a resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and related professionals in child and school psychology, public health, family studies, child and adolescent psychiatry, family medicine, and social work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)