In a position paper published in Women’s Health Issues, researchers issued policymakers a “call to action” to address the high rates of perinatal depression among Latina and African American women in the United States, urging funding to properly train health care providers in diagnosis and treatment.
“Despite the number of reliable screening tools and national efforts at increasing detection of [perinatal depression], rates of diagnosis and treatment continue to be low among Latinas and African American women,” Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo, PhD,assistant professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and colleagues wrote. “Stigma and limited access to psychoeducation about [perinatal depression] might help to explain these disparities. Although these factors have been explored individually, they have not been examined simultaneously, limiting our understanding of their effect.”
