Ethnic Group Differences in Mental Health Disparities

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose to establish the "Ethnic Group Differences in Mental Health Disparities Postdoctoral Training Program" within the Program for Research on Black Americans, one of several programs in the Research Center for Group Dynamics situated within the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan. The proposed training program will provide research-training opportunities for young scholars nationally, with special emphasis on scholars interested in racial and ethnic mental health disparities. This training and extended mentoring program is proposed as a mechanism for increasing the numbers of ethnically and racially diverse postdoctoral scholars in the mental health fields conducting research on issues related to disparities in mental health and mental disorders among ethnic and racial groups; as well to provide a solid research training for a new cadre of minority researchers trained cross-disciplinarily. According to the recently, published report "An Investment in America's Future: Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Mental Health Research Careers , "training racial/ethnic minority mental health scientists is critical to the quality of the Nation's health care as well as to our broader national economic welfare" (National Institute of Mental Health, 2001, p. 6). This proposed postdoctoral training program aims to address this important challenge. Using the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) (a study funded by NIMH currently in the field focused on African American and Afro-Caribbean populations), and the National Latino and Asian American Survey (a study funded by NIMH focused on Latino and Asian populations) as the basic vehicles for training, the program would seek to provide hand-on experience in the manipulation, analysis, and publication of data from these broad representative national samples of the three racial and ethnic groups. Specifically, we propose over the five-year period to increase the number of racially and ethnically diverse scholars conducting research on issues related to racial/ethnic disparities in mental health as well as to enrich the scientific knowledge base through their increased representation among mental health scholars.