DOWNTOWN — Black women in Chicago's "disadvantaged" neighborhoods may be experiencing high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, but there are few resources to help them, according to new research.
Researchers from Northwestern Medicine found the links while working with women at a clinic in the South Side Oakland neighborhood over the last two years. They were helping women with symptoms of depression, investigating how they could help people access mental health treatment, said Inger Burnett-Zeigler, a psychiatry professor who co-authored the study.
The researchers found more than half of the women were also reporting having witnessed or endured traumatic experiences, including instances of sexual abuse, domestic violence and community violence.
About 29 percent of all the women met the guidelines for a PTSD diagnosis and another 7 percent had some symptoms of PTSD, according to the report, which was first reported on by the Tribune.
When just looking at the women who had reported experiencing trauma, 70 percent had symptoms of PTSD.
“I think the biggest finding is that there are people that are experiencing significant amounts of distress — which includes depression, anxiety and trauma-related symptoms — [who are] not being given sufficient attention,” Burnett-Zeigler said.
The women “are kind of going about their day-to-day lives, going to work, caring for their families, and nobody is really asking about these symptoms and there are very few resources available to help them deal with some of these symptoms,” she said.
People with PTSD can struggle with flashbacks where they relive trauma, have bad dreams and "frightening" thoughts, and might avoid things that remind them of traumatic experiences, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The disorder can last for years.
But there are few resources to help these women, Burnett-Zeigler said.
"Many of the women in the group are doing the best that they can, and they really demonstrate a lot of strength and resilience, and I think that shouldn’t be taken for granted," Burnett-Zeigler said. "They’re carrying more strain than they should, and the health care system really needs to step up and give people more support.”
Community members can turn to support groups for help in the short term, Burnett-Zeigler said. The women involved in her research in the Oakland neighborhood go to weekly "mindfulness meetings" to help with their depressive and PTSD symptoms. There, the women learn about how they carry stress and learn coping skills to "reduce that stress and depression that they might be experiencing," she said.
In the long term, though, mental health care needs to be integrated into the rest of health care so people can get help more easily, Burnett-Zeigler said. She thinks this could also reduce the stigma associated with seeking mental health treatment.
And people should recognize that while mental illness can have a "biological component," Burnett-Zeigler said, "a lot of the distress people are experiencing is a result of really tough environments."
“When people don’t feel safe, that is a trigger for having symptoms of mental illness. When people don’t feel safe in terms of their physical safety, when people don’t feel secure in terms of being able to provide for themselves and for their families, when people don’t have secure employment, these are all factors that can affect people’s mental health,” Burnett-Zeigler said.
Getting people into safe and secure environments where they have stable employment is "an important first step” to recovery, she said.
