Ethnic specificity in the relative minority use and staffing of community mental health centers

Abstract

One of the mechanisms proposed for remedying underuse of community mental health centers by ethnic minorities is the increased employment of these minorities on community mental health center staff. The relative use and staffing rates by minorities were examined separately for four minorities: blacks, Spanish Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. There were statistically reliable moderate relationships between relative use and staffing rates for particular minorities, but somewhat lower relationships between relative use by one minority and staffing by other minorities. No general pattern was found for all minorities either for a different relationship between utilization and staffing for males and females or for a sex specificity; rather, different patterns appear for different minorities. Service-area demography appears to have no consistent effect on these relationships.