The Role of Black Churches in Promoting Mental Health for Communities of Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Black Americans.

OBJECTIVE: Churches in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods serve as safe havens in many Black communities. Churches provide faith and charitable services but often have limited resources to address the mental health needs of their communities. This article reports on a collaborative effort, driven by members of a Black church, to understand mental health needs, coping strategies, and resilience factors in a community of socioeconomically disadvantaged Black Americans. METHODS: A community-based participatory research effort was established among a church, a community mental health organization, clinicians, and researchers to interview and survey individuals residing near the church. RESULTS: The sample consisted of 59 adults, most of whom were ages 46-65 years, men (N=34, 58%), and unemployed (N=46, 78%). Mean scores on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (9.2±7.7) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 scale (9.4±6.7) were almost three times higher than those reported by studies of other Black populations in the United States. Five themes emerged: prolonged poverty and daily exposure to violence trigger emotional distress, mental health stigma affects help seeking, spirituality promotes mental relief and personal recovery, spirituality helps in coping with poverty and unsafe neighborhoods, and church-based programs are needed. CONCLUSIONS: Uptake of traditional mental health services was low, and reliance on faith and resource distribution by the church was high. Church-led interventions are needed to promote mental health at the individual and community levels. Mental health stigma, and negative attitudes toward mental health promotion in the community, may be addressed by integrating traditional mental health services in church-based recreational and leisure activities.

SHARPening Residency Selection: Implementing a Systematic Holistic Application Review Process.

PROBLEM: Traditional metrics used in residency application review processes are systematically biased against applicants from minoritized communities that are underrepresented in medicine (URiM). These biases harm not just URiM applicants but also residency programs and patients. Although several residency programs have implemented holistic reviews to mitigate these biases, few tested tools exist that can be adapted and implemented in a wide variety of settings within academic medicine. APPROACH: This article describes advances made in the third year of a longitudinal, ongoing quality improvement project that used the A3 framework to improve recruitment of URiM residents to a family medicine residency program. The authors devised a systematic holistic application review process (SHARP) to determine which applicants to invite to interview with the program. SHARP's development began in August 2019, and after significant discussion with program leadership and iterations of rubric refinement, the program adopted SHARP in September 2020 to review applications for the 2021 application cycle. OUTCOMES: Compared with the 2016 to 2020 period before SHARP implementation, data from the 2021 and 2022 residency application cycles after SHARP implementation showed a significant increase in the proportion of interviewed candidates who identify as URiM (from 23% to 38%, P < .001) and matched candidates who identify as URiM (from 27% to 62%, P = .004). There was also a notable increase in the number and diversity of reviewers who evaluated applicants to the program. NEXT STEPS: SHARP is a promising tool to mitigate the effects of racism and other biases against URiM applicants to residency programs. Residency programs across specialties may benefit from adopting SHARP and adapting it based on their own goals and priorities.