The National Study of African American Mental Health (NSAA) is the most comprehensive and detailed study of the mental health of black Americans ever conducted. The National Survey of American Life (NSAL) conducted as part of the NSAA is an extensive, complex, and innovative sample survey designed to explore intra-and inter-group racial and ethnic differences in mental disorders, psychological distress and informal and formal service use, as they are manifested in the context of a variety of stressors, risk and resilient factors, and coping resources, among national adult samples. The samples include blacks of African descent (African Americans) (N=3,589), the first ever, national probability study of blacks of Caribbean descent (Afro-Caribbeans) (N= 1,604), and non-Hispanic whites (Americans largely of European descent) (N= 1,006). Supplementary interviews conducted with 1,200 African American and Caribbean black adolescents thirteen to seventeen years of age in the NSAL adult households permits an assessment of early onset conditions and, in conjunction with family history data, the role of familial influences as risk and protective factors. This competing, continuation reapplication requests funds to extend the study for three years in order to complete data cleaning, codebook construction, preparation of major constructs and to conduct primary analyses and in order to lay the groundwork for others to make further use of this invaluable data in coming years. This proposal has four specific aims: 1) Estimate intra- and inter-group racial and ethnic differences in the prevalence of DSM IV CIDI measures of mental disorders and levels of physical, social, and psychological impairments; 2) Ascertain the concordance between diagnoses identified by the CIDI and diagnoses identified in the SCID sub-sample by the major race/ethnic groups; 3) Examine intra- and inter-group racial and ethnic differences in the nature and distribution of risk and resilience factors by important structural and socio-demographic factors and vulnerability and responsiveness to stressors; and, 4) Examine racial and ethnic differences in help-seeking behavior and the utilization of general medical and specialty mental health services for serious mental disorders. ? ?
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