Abstract:

A growing body of evidence suggest that a crisis mental health has emerged as long with the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, this crisis is growing rapidly in all segments of American society. In addition, as the ebb and flow of COVID-19 infections continues, more cases of the emergent mental health crisis have continued exponential growth as well. Consequently, the latter observation indicates that Americans especially parents are facing a major set of companion challenges. These developments have serious implications on the resumption of “normal” operations of societal institutions. In his paper, we focus our attention on the mental health status of African American parents with school aged children. Further we investigate the theoretical link of parental mental health status and other selection social determinants of health including educational status, economic instability, community and social contact, healthcare access, etc. Existing research literature indicates that individuals with a higher educational attainment status have a higher life expectancy rate than individuals with a lower educational attainment status. Moreover, the likelihood of individuals with higher educational attainment status appears to have lower levels of economic instability. In addition, there are other systemic factors despite educational level that have contributed to the mistrust of the American healthcare system in general among the latter group. Mistrust and lack of access to mental health services is even more pronounced among African Americans across all educational status levels. A serious lack of cultural competency is a major healthcare barrier that African Americans confront. As for mental healthcare services, issues relative to cultural competency are more critical. Therefore, this mental health phenomenon appears to be having a far more negative impact on African Americans.

The initial research questions that were generated for the current study are:
1.) To what extent are there significant differences attributable to historic and contemporary mental health determinants among African American parents with school age children by education status?
2.) To what extent are there significant differences attributable to environmental and economic determinants relative to parental mental health status among African American parents with school age children by educational level?
3.) To what extent are there significant differences attributable to psycho-social determinants relative to mental health status among African American parents with school age children by education status?

A multivariate non-experimental research design was developed for the current study. Secondary samples of data from African American households with school age children (N = 4,400) were generated from the National Substance Abuse and Health Survey published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA).Sub-samples were disaggregated for the Northeast, Far West, Midwest, and the Southern regions of the U. S. Samples of data were analyzed using the forward stepwise Multi-Nominal Logistic Regression Analysis method. Major findings indicated that African American parents with school age children had similar mental health challenges related to despite their differences in socioeconomic status, educational status other social determinants of mental health.

Keywords:

Parents, education status, mental health crisis, social determinants of health.