WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, today continued to push for greater federal resources and support for youth mental health services at a committee hearing focused on youth mental health. During the hearing, the Senator noted the mental health disparity that exists in communities of color and sought answers on how the government can better target resources for minority youth and ensure health care and child care providers are equipped to handle these unique challenges. The Senate Finance Committee, which sets national health policy, is planning to develop a package of policies to address mental health in America.

“In the first half of 2021 alone, children’s hospitals reported cases of self-injury and suicide in ages 5-17 at a 45% higher rate than during the same timeframe in 2019,” the Senator said. “And for children under 13, the suicide rate is twice that for Black children than for white children.”

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Tami Benton, M.D., the Executive Director and Chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, was one of the witnesses on the panel today. She noted that one of the challenges is a lack of access to services that are “culturally competent” and lack “cultural humility”.

“The data demonstrates pretty strongly that culturally concordant therapists and patients have better retention and treatment and better outcomes in treatment overtime,” Dr. Benton said. “The goal is for groups where there is not concordance between the patient and the therapist that there be cultural humility and that we train individuals to learn to inquire and understand the cultural experiences of others when we’re engaged in treatment.”

“Across Congress we all talk about the provider shortages this nation is facing – especially mental health providers that are available for Black and Latino communities. The pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on minority communities and the provider shortage has only grown more dire,” the Senator added. “More dedicated support for a larger and more diverse pediatric workforce is critical to addressing children’s mental health needs now and into the future.”

Dr. Benton said partnering with trusted community organizations and doing greater outreach in communities of color to recruit health care professionals is essential to promoting the diversification of the health care field. She also mentioned that offering loan repayments for health care professionals would also be beneficial recruitment tool.

At last week’s Senate Finance Committee hearing on the same issue, Sen. Menendez highlighted his bill, The Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act, which would address growing issues of suicide and mental health facing young people, particularly in socially and economically disadvantaged communities that have disproportionately faced disparities in access to mental health treatment and outcomes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, 1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year, with 72,000 people aged 12-17 suffering from depression in just New Jersey alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also found that suicide remains the second leading cause of death among teens aged 15-19, with the suicide death rate among Black youth increasing faster than any other racial or ethnic group according to a report published by the CBC.

Furthermore, according to the AAMC, Black and Latino children have witnessed more illness and death during the pandemic than other children, and during this same period the CDC found that Black and Latino groups across all ages are reporting higher rates of symptoms of anxiety and depression than their white counterparts. The rates among youth have been even more alarming, which exhibited a 24% increase in the proportion of children going to emergency health departments for mental health care in the first six months of the pandemic compared to the same period in 2019.