Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate whether there are racial differences concerning peoples’ attitudes toward psychiatric medications
in general, and Prozac™ specifically, using secondary analysis from data derived from the General Social Survey (GSS, 1998). A total of 43
questions from the GSS are used in this analysis. The results indicate that Whites are more receptive than Blacks and Asians (the latter being least receptive) to the use of psychiatric medication in general and Prozac™ specifically. Among variables other than race, education is
the most important factor. Education is positively related to comfort with psychiatric medication and Prozac™.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Most studies of innovation adoption focus on organizational characteristics or the institutional environment, but research that integrates those two perspectives is less common. Furthermore, little research compares innovation adoption in public and private sector organizations. This research considers the “public-private distinction,” organizational compatibility, and inter-organizational referral relationships in models of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) adoption in the field of substance abuse treatment. Using data from nationally representative samples of 362 publicly funded and 401 privately funded substance abuse treatment centers, a four-category typology of public and private organizations initially predicted variation in SSRI adoption, but some of these differences became nonsignificant when organizational and environmental factors were controlled. These data provided support for hypotheses about associations between internal organizational characteristics and SSRI adoption as well as hypotheses regarding the role of the external environment. Future research should continue to integrate both internal and external factors in theoretical explanations of organizational change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The psychiatric emergency room (PER) plays an increasingly important role in the community mental health system. Research regarding individuals who repeatedly use PER services has been hampered by the lack of a grounding theoretical construct from which to examine PER service utilization. The current study uses two years of data from an urban PER to examine the impact of four different definitions of repeated PER service use. Results suggest that predictors of PER service utilization differ depending on the definition of frequent service use applied. For example, Hispanic ethnicity was predictive of using the PER for times or more in 12 months, but was not predictive of other definitions. African-American ethnicity was predictive of using PER services twice or more in 12 months, and four times or more in 12 months, but was not predictive of using PER services six or more times in 12 months or being two standard deviations above the mean number of PER visits.This variation in results across definitions highlights not only the need to be mindful of definitions when examining PER service utilization data, but also the need for increased integration of theory driven models to better inform research, intervention, and practice when attempting to understand individuals who are repeat users of services.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: It is difficult to overstate the extent to which America’s mental-health policy in the post-bellum era has been solely concerned with the needs of white communities. Intellectual precept, as well as institutional provision, were equally responsible for discriminating against the treatment of African American clients. For decades the vast majority of mental-health officials subscribed to the belief that non-white—or to use the common parlance, “non-classical”—clients did not have the “ego suitability” to benefit from such therapies. Even today such asymmetries are reflected in the striking lack of black psychiatrists registered with the discipline’s principal guild, the American Psychiatric Association. And traditional narratives of mental-health care have, therefore, been content to absent black people from such histories.
But, in much the same way that the literature on settlement houses ignored race because of its failure to consider the work carried out in African American community centers, so the same is true of histories of psychiatry. In churches, social clubs, sororities, and other institutions across America’s black communities, the post-war period witnessed a concerted interest in psychological testing and the provision of mental-illness therapies. As well as the better-known institutions like Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic or the Clarks’ Northside Center, both of which opened in 1946, a number of other community associations began to discuss the necessity for providing their constituencies with such programs in this period. Focusing principally on the work of the James Weldon Johnson Community Center in East Harlem, this paper will consider, quite mechanically, the types of therapies and the reasons given for them that such organizations began offering from the early 1950s.
This was not a project that simply affected black Americans however. For these efforts were part of a broader transformation of American psychiatric knowledge, a transformation which turned psychiatrists into political commentators, and a discipline previously animated by the pathologies of individual into one more concerned with those of society.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Coming to define oneself as an adult is a critical transition. Significant others and significant interactions with institutions are essential to the development of self. Individuals whose childhood and adolescent experiences include contact with the public mental health or criminal justice system have numerous hurdles to overcome including disruptions in education and limited opportunities for pro-social interactions. Their life experiences reflect deviant socialization processes in families and relationships. This paper uses symbolic interactionism to highlight the “emerging adult” population with psychiatric disabilities involved with the criminal justice system. Case studies and secondary data examine how emerging adults create meaning and define their situations based their progressive identity formation and social interactions. Demographic, clinical, and criminal history variables analyzed describe this population as distinct. Case studies suggest that their internalized informal social control mechanisms are poorly developed for independent community living due excess interactions with formal social control mechanisms. Thus, emerging adults with psychiatric disabilities and criminal histories require external social controls to manage their interactions which ultimately influence their identity formation.