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Black Men Have Unique Mental Health Challenges By Vanessa Clarke and Alicia Benjamin
A Victor Armstrong is the Chief Health Equity Officer for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
dmitting to needing help for mental health concerns is stigmatized in the U.S., and the problem is even more pronounced in the Black community. For many African Americans, “it can be incredibly challenging to discuss the topic of mental health due to this concern about how they may be perceived by others,” according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “This fear could prevent people from seeking mental health care when they really need it.” Black men face a special set of challenges around mental health. “We don’t talk about the way mental illness affects Black men,” said Victor Armstrong, the first Chief Health Equity Officer for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS).
“We don’t talk about how suicide is affecting Black men,” he said. “There are nearly 3,000 suicides annually among African Americans and 80 percent of those are Black men.” Armstrong, who currently serves on the board of directors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) of North Carolina, went on to say that surveys of African Americans have shown that 63 percent of them believe depression is a sign of weakness. In the 1970s, epidemiologist Sherman James, now a professor at Duke University, coined the term “John Henryism” to refer to the increased effort and stress Black people endure caused by prolonged adversity, racial discrimination, inequality and financial hardship. “Other groups of people can have a full expression of emotion publicly,” said David Roundtree, a licensed clinical social worker and therapist in Charlotte. “That’s January-February 2022 | Pride Magazine
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