BUILDING AN EQUITABLE FUTURE
Addressing
DISPARITIES
W Kyaien Conner
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HEN KYAIEN CONNER TALKS about health disparities experienced by people of color, she draws not only from extensive training and her background as a mental health practitioner, educator and researcher, but also from painful personal experience. Prior to joining USF’s faculty in 2013, Conner lived in Pittsburgh. She vividly recalls driving home from an event with her family and being stopped four separate times by police – who offered no reasons for pulling them over. “We were questioned as to why we were in that area, if the car was ours,” she says. “During the fourth stop, my husband was asked to get out of the car so the police could do a search. My two young sons were in the back seat.” The incident illustrates the importance of recognizing that physical and mental health disparities experienced by people of color “aren’t just about health.” “They are about disparities in all aspects of society that lead people to feel that they are being marginalized, mistreated and discriminated against,” she says. “Those are among the factors that enhance stress and fear, which are directly connected to health. You can’t separate those and say this is only about treatment or access to a doctor. Those are important. But all of those other societal elements have a daily impact on people of color. Every time you walk out of the house, you know that being Black will impact all of the interactions that you have. That stress impacts your body, it impacts how you move through the world, it has a direct impact on health.” An associate professor of mental health law and policy, Conner is helping prepare USF students for careers as behavioral health or health care providers. A course that she developed, Cultural Diversity, Health and Behavioral Health, is designed specifically to help undergraduates “understand the historical implications of health disparities that are significant realities in communities they go into.”
UNIVERSITY of SOUTH FLORIDA
Physical, behavioral health issues experienced by people of color ‘aren’t just about health’
One of those realities is the widespread reluctance in communities of color to seek professional mental health services. “My passion for being a mental health service provider and working specifically with the Black community stemmed from my early recognition that seeking those services just wasn’t discussed or was seen as a last resort, if it was even considered an option,” Conner says, adding that she has encountered such reluctance in various communities of color. “There is a cultural idea that talking to outsiders about things of a sensitive nature, such as mental health, is just taboo,” she says. “It’s something you keep in your family or that you pray about, but you don’t seek outside professional help. People don’t want to associate with terms like depression. In my research, people would often say ‘I just have the blues’ or ‘I’m not depressed,’ but when you ask questions on a scale that identifies depression, they would score off the charts.” That reluctance stems, at least in part, from the historical issue of mistrust of the health-care system that extends to mental health care providers. Conner calls that mistrust “pervasive,” noting that African Americans are half as likely to seek mental health services as whites. “It stems from real histories of abuse and mistreatment between the Black community and the medical/health field, as well as academics who have used communities of color to build research careers, publish papers and then leave them with nothing to show for it,” she says. “Community-based participatory research is vital – research projects that go into communities and partner with them to determine what their needs are, develop strategies for addressing those collaboratively, and engage community at each level of the research process.” In her own research, Conner focuses on mental health disparities facing ethnic minorities in engagement, retention and psychosocial outcomes. She recently received a three-year, $1.7 million grant from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute for community-engaged work with local Area Agencies on Aging. She will assist in identifying some of the issues related to behavioral health in older African American and Hispanic populations, specifi-
