The black aged: a strategy for future mental health services

Abstract

The younger generation of today will become the elderly of tomorrow. The qualitative differences in life experiences of blacks versus whites lead to differences in the manifestations of emotional problems. Thus the need for a special psychiatric strategy for aged blacks in the future. The problems of blacks, regardless of age, are inextricably linked with beliefs regarding illness, health and institutionalized racism. The many psychiatric ghettoes stemming from the depopulation of mental hospitals reflect poor planning and an obvious disregard for the realities of the whole life situations of elderly blacks. There should be an end to living in squalor and being the victims of muggings, rape and all forms of exploitation. Psychiatry should step forward with some careful and significant plans.