Race and Gender: Exploring the Intersectionality of Mental Health Treatment Seeking Among Active Duty Military Personnel

• In Event: 538 - Regular Session. Mental Health: Social Consequences

Abstract

Literature demonstrates Blacks and Latinos use formal mental health services at lower rates than Whites. Research has proposed several reasons for these racial treatment utilization patterns including lack of access to health care, distrust of formal medicine, and stigma attached to mental illness. However, new research has demonstrated race is not a predictor for using VA mental health services among U.S. military veterans. The following study uses the Survey of Health Related Behaviors of Active Duty Military Personnel (2011) to explore racial differences in the reaction to Traumatic Brain Injury, Sexual Trauma, High Combat Exposure, and the Perception of Stigma. This paper reports the predicted probabilities of using Military Chaplain Services and Military Mental Health Services based upon multivariate logistic regression models with the following results. First, there are few racial differences in Military Chaplain utilization unless non-Hispanic Blacks experience multiple extreme stressors. Second, non-Hispanic Blacks are more likely than Whites to use Military Mental Health Services when they experience trauma and mental illness. Third, when Blacks experience multiple extreme stressors, then the perception of stigma encouraged them to use Chaplain Services. Fourth, the perception of stigma deterred non-Hispanic Whites and Latinos from using Military Mental Health Services, but it had no effect on non-Hispanic Blacks. Finally, unlike prior research that shows that stigma’s negative effect on civilians, this research shows that stigma only has a minor effect in either encouraging the use of Military Chaplain Services or deterring the use of Military Mental Health Services.

Author

• Sean Matthew Vina, Indiana University Bloomington