Tiara Armstrong on In Focus

KENTUCKY — In 2008, the U.S. Congress declared the month of July to be ‘Bebe Moore Campbell’ National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month. 

Multiple members in Congress at the time said they wanted to raise awareness to help improve access to mental health resources in minority communities.

Here at home here in Kentucky, Tiara Armstrong is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Supervisor and an EMDR trained therapist with experience treating a variety of mental health concerns and she joins this In Focus Kentucky segment to to share some of the stigmas that you hear and see around the topic of mental health and much more.

Data in 2021, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Offices of Minority Health estimates that only 39% of Black or African American adults, 25% of Asian adults, and 36% of Hispanic/Latino adults with any mental illness were treated, compared to 52% of non-Hispanic white adults.

According to the the (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 746,000 adults in Kentucky have a mental health condition (that’s more than 10x the population of Bowling Green). NAMI also reports that in February 2021, 43.6% of adults in Kentucky reported symptoms of anxiety or depression. 22.8% were unable to get needed counseling or therapy. While of the 232,000 adults in Kentucky who did not receive needed mental health care, 40.9% did not because of cost.

You can watch the full In Focus Kentucky segment in the player above.