Mental Health At Work
May 2021 marks a year since George Floyd’s death and it is also National Mental Health Month. It’s time to talk about mental health in the Black community, and it’s a conversation that we have to keep having. It’s too important to ignore. Here are some statistics:
50.1 percent of Black adults 26-49 with serious mental illness did NOT receive treatment in 2018.
Less than 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are Black - raising issues of the accessibility of culturally safe interventions.
Stigma can be an issue, with 63% of Black people surveyed believing mental illness is a personal failing.
There is a difference in mental health outcomes based on race. Mental Health America reports “African Americans are more likely to have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness than adult whites.”
Mental Health America also reports that over the past year 4.8 million Black people reported having a mental illness, 22.4 percent of those with a serious mental illness.
Mental health has been stigmatized in the United States and within the Black community this stigma runs deep. Therefore, when employers are building culturally safe and healthy workplaces, mental and emotional health are factors that need to be considered. It needs to be part of the workplace health and wellness strategy and should be considered when planning for inclusion. Employers can only truly welcome Black women into the workplace when conditions are created so that Black women have a meaningful opportunity to participate fully and feel emotionally safe.
When we look at the mental health challenges that some Black people in America experience, we also have to acknowledge that Black women have an added layer - sexism. This is an additional complexity and the exhaustion that comes from dealing with both racism and sexism on a daily basis can be overwhelming.
The reality is that subtle acts of exclusion, or microaggressions, can create a cumulative mental load in the workplace. The emotional energy required to assess the value of responding to race- based passive aggressive behaviors is an additional burden that is placed on Black employees. It’s a lot to process in a day at the office.
It all adds up, one small infringement on top of another and it leads to restraint collapse. It’s the exhaustion of holding it all together.
Who we are impacts how we are. There are social determinants of health that impact our wellness. It’s the extent to which we have the money we need, access to health services, quality of nutrition, and leisure time to pursue exercise. Intergenerationally, the social determinants of health have led to health issues within the Black community. With stressors in the workplace attributed to race and misperceptions of Black women, there are the impacts of physical and emotional stress on the body to contend with.
When we are traumatized by constant experiences of harm done to Black people (i.e., as seen in the media), that’s another pain-point Black women are carrying around with them in the workplace. There’s a scene in Hamilton that illustrates the loss of the child, where everything is moving without those who are grieving and it can feel like we are left behind in our grief when the pain is not acknowledged.
So where do we go from here, in terms of supporting Black women in the workplace? Like any big problem, we can start with low-hanging fruit. For example, providing professional learning opportunities about the complexities of equity such as microaggressions. Addressing microaggressions in the workplace will reduce the cumulative mental load and instances of harm. We train our staff to recognize microaggressions and we empower them to address issues in the moment.
With one in four Black people likely to experience depression over the course of their lives (according to the Journal of Applied Psychology), it’s an issue we can’t ignore. We can’t ignore it as leaders, as business owners, as employees and as humans who care about other humans. Meaningful allyship looks like culturally safe workplaces that address microaggressions and provide benefits that cover mental health services. We need to take care of each other at work, and these are the things we need to think about as we plan how to do so.