Behavioral health issues may finally be starting to get the attention they have long deserved from the philanthropic community. For too long, substance use and mental health have comprised only a fraction of philanthropic investments (~1%), but a number of funders—especially over the last 12 months—have responded to the mental health and substance use crisis in our country by increasing investments in this area. Additionally, the COVID pandemic has created a unique opportunity for philanthropy: the widespread experiences of social isolation and loneliness have (hopefully not temporarily) reduced stigma and opened up space to talk about behavioral health. And the policy changes that have supported telemedicine—backed by a surge of private investment—have opened up new possibilities for where and how behavioral health services can be delivered.

Foundations that focus on behavioral health must seize this moment to address persistent racial inequities in behavioral health.

In this post, we briefly cover racism and behavioral health issues that we have encountered in our client work for you to consider and invite you to take a brief self-assessment to help you explore opportunities to center racial equity in your behavioral health work.

Racism is a common root cause of behavioral health inequities, driving a lack of access to care, a lack of a diverse set of providers, lower quality of care, misdiagnosis, and under-diagnosis, and differential ways in which mental health and substance use are criminalized. For example:

  • Racism can raise the risk of poor behavioral health.
  • Racism impedes access to high-quality services.
  • Racism has shaped the evolution of the behavioral health system.

Read the full article about behavioral health and racism by Ryan D. Souza and Abigail Ridgway at FSG.