On January 31st, 2025, the Office of The White House officially recognized National Black History Month 2025., and in this article, we’ll share the latest information on mental health among young black adults, in order to celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion in our ongoing mission to offer the best mental health treatment available.
The White House recognition follows in the footsteps of previous administrations, which established National Black History Month first in 1976, and subsequently endorsed National Black History Month throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and the early 2020s.
Here’s an excerpt of the 2025 Presidential Proclamation:
“Today, I am very honored to recognize February 2025 as National Black History Month. Every year, National Black History Month is an occasion to celebrate the contributions of so many black American patriots who have indelibly shaped our Nation’s history. Throughout our history, black Americans have been among our country’s most consequential leaders, shaping the cultural and political destiny of our Nation in profound ways.”
The proclamation goes on to recognize the contributions of the following figures in U.S. history and current events:
- Frederick Douglass
- Harriet Tubman
- Thomas Sowell
- Clarence Thomas
- Tiger Woods
Black History Month is part of a series of national awareness days that celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion in the U.S. These months are an important part of our civic awareness, and our understanding of the needs of traditionally underserved and/or marginalized groups, or groups with a history of structural and/or systemic discrimination.
In honor of Black History Month this year, we’ll take the time to share the latest information on mental health among black people in the U.S. We’ll focus specifically on mental health among young black adults. For an overview on mental health in the African American Community, please navigate to our blog and read this article:
July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month (MMHAM)
We’ll start with an overview mental health among Black/African American people in the U.S., then narrow our focus to data on mental illness among black people in age groups 18-25 and 26-49. We’ll address mental health among B Black/African American adolescents in a subsequent post.
Health and Mental Health in the Black Community
When we talk about overall health and mental health in the black community, we often prioritize the following:
- Improving access to health and mental health treatment in the black community.
- Improving awareness and reducing stigma related to mental illness in the black community.
Why?
Consider the following facts published by the Health and Human Service Office of Minority Health:
General Mental Health Mental Health Among Young Black Adults in the U.S.
- Black Americans have a 20% increased risk of serious mental health problems compared to the general population. Common problems include:
- Depression
- ADHD
- PTSD
- Suicide
- Black Americans use mental health services 50% less frequently than non-Hispanic Whites
- 41.5% of youth ages 12-17 diagnosed with depression received care for a major depressive episode.
- Only 35.1% of diagnosed African American youth received treatment.
In addition, please review this data published online on the page Mental and Behavioral Health – Black/African Americans | Office of Minority Health (OMH):
- Suicide was the third leading cause of death for Black Americans 10-24 in 2022.
- Black American males died by suicide at four times the rate of Black females in 2021.
- Mental health treatment for people diagnosed with mental illness:
- White: 52.4%
- Mixed race: 52.2%
- Black: 39.4%
Let’s look at this in light of another metric: life expectancy. Here’s the most recent data, published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):
Life Expectancy in the U.S. By Race/Ethnicity
- American Indian/Alaskan Native: 67.9
- Black/African Americans: 72.8 years
- Non-Hispanic White: 77.5
- Hispanic/Latinx: 80.0
- Asian: 84.5
This clarifies the need for advocacy and awareness around minority health in general, and the health of American Indian/Alaskan Natives and Black/African Americans in particular. We can improve across the board in these areas: awareness is step one.
Mental Health Among Young Black Adults: Facts and Figures
Now let’s look at the latest rates of mental illness among young black adults in the U.S., as reported in the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2023 NSDUH). We’ll start with the information on any mental illness (AMI) and serious mental illness (SMI).
Here’s the data:
Any Mental Illness (AMI) or Serious Mental Illness (SMI) Among Black/African Americans,
Treatment Rates for Black/African Americans
AMI in 2022:
- By Age:
- 18-25: 28%
- 26-49: 24%
- Received treatment:
- 18+: 37.9%
SMI in 2022:
- By Age:
- 18-25: 7.3%
- 26-49: 6.0%
- Received treatment:
- 18+: 52.3%
AMI in 2023:
- By Age:
- 18-25: 26%
- 26-49: 23%
- Received treatment:
- 18+: 43.8%
SMI in 2023:
- By Age:
- 18-25: 6.4%
- 26-49: 5.2%
- Received treatment:
- 18+: 56.4%
The national average for non-Hispanic demographic groups receiving treatment was 52.6% for AMI and 66.7% for SMI in 2022, and 55.1% for AMI and 72.4% for SMI in 2023, which shows that black people in the U.S. receive treatment at rates significantly below average for both moderate and severe mental illness.
In addition, data published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) shows that members of minority demographics, like Black Americans experience barriers to mental health care, use community mental health support services less frequently than non-minorities, use emergency rooms for health care more frequently than non-minorities, and are at increased risk of poor, inadequate health care, compared to non-minorities.
Now let’s look at one more set of data related to mental health among young black adults: the figures in depression published in the 2023 NSDUH. In that report, researchers use the phase Major Depressive Episode (MDE) as a proxy metric for major depressive disorder (MDD), and the phrase MDE With Severe Impairment as a proxy metric for severe MDD.
Here’s the data.
Mental Health Among Black Adults 18+:
Major Depressive Episode (MDE) and MDE With Severe Impairment
- MDE in 2022: 6.6%
- Received treatment: 51.2%
- MDE with Severe Impairment in 2022: 4.9%
- Received treatment: 54.4%
- MDE in 2023: 6.5%
- Received treatment: 58.4%
- MDE with Severe Impairment in 2023: 4.4%
- Received treatment: 59%
The average rate of treatment was 64% for non-Hispanic demographic groups, which shows that black people in the U.S. receive treatment at rates significantly below average for both moderate and severe depression.
That’s the end of our data on mental health among young black adults. To reiterate, the main thing we can all do to improve mental health among African Americans is by raising awareness, increasing access, and removing stigma. We can all help by sharing the knowledge we have, supporting efforts to increase access to mental health support for young black adults, and work to counter stigma and discrimination when we see it.
Now let’s look at how we can celebrate National Black History Month overall.
What We Can Do for Black History Month
The theme for Black History Month this year is this:
This theme, in the words of the organizers at the Association for the Study Of African American Life and History (ASALH), focuses on:
“…the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds – free and unfree, skilled, and unskilled, vocational and voluntary – intersect with the collective experiences of Black people.”
For people unfamiliar with the Black Experience, the people a ASALH encourage expanding understanding of the following facts:
- African people arrived in the Americas to serve as a slave labor workforce
- African people were exploited as a workforce by European settlers, and then by the United States Government
- After the civil war, black people became:
- Sharecroppers
- Farm workers
- Landowners
- Wage earners
- During this time, black workers experienced:
- Wage inequality
- Discrimination based on race, and gender
- Also, during this time, black people in the following occupations organized to expand rights:
- Teachers
- Nurses
- Musicians
- Lawyers
- steel workers
- washerwomen
- Dock workers
Then, in 1925, black labor activist A Philp Randolph created the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids in New York City, marking the official beginning of the Black Labor Movement in the U.S. For anyone interested in honoring Black History Month, learning the timeline above is a good first step to take, and the second is remembering that history and understanding its impact on our society and culture.
In the words of the people at the ASALH:
Like religion, social justice movements, and education, studying African Americans’ labor and labor struggles are important organizing foci for new interpretations and reinterpretations of the Black past, present, and future.
Please, consider joining us this month as we celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion by recognizing and participating in Black History Month 2025.
