Motivated by the notion of “Protest Psychosis”- a diagnosis created by psychiatrists during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s that disproportionately labeled Black activists as schizophrenics- I examine the impact of protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of George Floyd on racial disparities in emergency department visits diagnosed as schizophrenia among Black populations. Schizophrenia is diagnosed at least two to four times more among Black populations relative to other racial groups, and scholars contend that this trend began appearing after the formulation of “Protest Psychosis”. In a series of three papers, I examine whether the echoes of “Protest Psychosis” continue to permeate the modern context, especially during periods of heightened racial tensions in the US. The first paper shows an increase in these visits immediately following George Floyd’s murder among Black (but not white) adult patients across 5 University of California Campus Healthcare Systems. My second paper finds similar patterns in Ohio among Black youth, specifically among male Black youth without a prior schizophrenia diagnosis. My third paper extends the scope of this research from regional to the national level wherein I observe an increase in inpatient admissions diagnosed as schizophrenia among Black patients within 0-3 months of the police killing of George Floyd, nationally in the US. Taken together, my work in this domain provides evidence of persistence of historically entrenched discrimination within psychiatry.
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Event Series:
EpiCH Seminar Series
Racial Disparities in Schizophrenia and Echoes of “The Protest Psychosis” in the U.S.
November 8, 2024 @ 10:00 am - 11:00 am CST