Black Children and the Pressing Need for Antiracism in Child Psychiatry

J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2021 Apr;60(4):432-434. doi: 10.1016/j.jaac.2020.12.007. Epub 2020 Dec 14.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly upended American children's lives as schools, libraries, daycare centers, and parks closed to prevent further viral spread. The effects of the pandemic were not distributed equally. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrated COVID-19's disproportionate impact on Black communities in terms of both infection rates and mortality.1 Further, generations of structural racism in the housing, financial, educational, and occupational systems fueled unequal consequences for the social determinants of mental health.

Publication types

  • Editorial

MeSH terms

  • Black or African American
  • COVID-19*
  • Child
  • Child Psychiatry*
  • Humans
  • Pandemics
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • United States