Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity.

Abstract

There is overwhelming evidence of serious problems with access to health care services, quality of care, and unequal health outcomes among minoritized groups including Black, Indigenous, and other populations of people of color across numerous health outcomes. At the core of health inequities are structural factors that include systemic racism as well as a range of other characteristics associated with limited political, social, and economic power. The APA Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity was appointed to recommend a course of action for APA in contributing to the solution of health inequities. The Task Force developed the Resolution on Advancing Health Equity in Psychology (https://www.apa.org/ about/policy/advancing-health-equity-psychology), adopted as APA policy in October 2021. The current report provides additional discussion of the limitations of current structures of psychology training, science, and professional practice in addressing health inequities. Recommendations are offered for specific actions in the following areas: (a) Education and Training, including recruitment, admissions, and retention along the pathway and curricula transformation throughout the training sequence; (b) Research and Publications, including advocacy for health equity in research funding, mitigating bias in reporting, and improving representation and inclusive excellence; and (c) Professional Practice, including developing competent professional practice models and guidelines and promoting viable service reimbursement.

Kids are all in the same storm but not in the same boat.

“…and settings (e.g., primary care, specialty clinics/office practices, schools, telehealth, etc.) There is continuing emphasis to diversify the mental health and education professional workforces to reflect the demographics of the population served in order to advance health and education equity (e.g., National Academy for State Health Policy, 2021; Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity, 2023; Steiner et al, 2023).…”

How psychologists can help achieve equity in health care—advancing innovative partnerships and models of care delivery: Introduction to the special issue.

“…In addition to these articles, the 2021 APA Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity (2023) developed a comprehensive report to provide recommendations in education and training, science and research, professional practice, and advocacy to address the role of psychology in achieving health equity. Based on scientific evidence, the Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity report centers on race, ethnicity, and racism within an intersectional framework as crucial drivers of health inequities.…”

What role can (and should) clinical science play in promoting mental health care equity?

“…Understanding this history is crucial to future change; taking responsibility for the systemic racism and discrimination that have been interwoven into the way we fund and conduct clinical research with various groups (and which forms the basis for a lot of our current understanding about mental health phenomenology and effective treatments) is going to be central to being able to appreciably improve clinical science approaches as we move forward (Asnaani, Gutierrez Chavez, & Kaur, 2022). In this spirit, some important scholarship has arisen in just the past few years focusing on the promotion of mental health care equity, including taskforce recommendations from the American Psychological Association (see Presidential Task Force on Psychology and Health Equity, 2023) and an excellent special issue on this very topic published earlier this year in the American Psychologist (see introduction to this special issue by Thurston et al, 2023).…”