Combating Persistent Cultural Incompetence in Mental Health Care Systems Serving African Americans.

This article highlights institutional inequalities and cultural insensitivities that contribute to African American underutilization of mental health care service systems. The paper discusses how African Americans encounter barriers to accessing mental health systems and the issues and challenges to achieving culturally relevant assessments and diagnostics, treatment modalities, evaluations, and research. A cultural competency framework is used to address critical service delivery and service implementation issues that have potentially negative effects on therapeutic treatments for African Americans. Finally, recommendations for modification and enhancement are made in order to achieve culturally sensitive and responsive mental health services for African Americans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]