Elyse Fox is on a mission. The founder of Sad Girls Club, a non-profit organization working to support and destigmatize mental health care for women of color, Fox is working to combat the mental health crisis plaguing Black Americans—one Instagram post at a time. With an artfully curated aesthetic and over 250,000 followers, Sad Girls Club has quickly become a popular resource for those seeking to engage with wellness content on Instagram.
Mental Health 101 is the education Gomez wished she d had in school but is now dedicated to providing for others. The initiative, which coincides with May being Mental Health Awareness Month, is dedicated to supporting mental health education and encouraging financial support for more mental health services in educational services, according to her follow-up Instagram post. The set of slides which starts off by listing mental health as its own school subject next to math, science, history and P.E. contain shocking statistics about mental health, a petition calling on the philanthropy community to support mental health services in schools, and a fundraiser for the Rare Impact Fund that she launched on her 28th birthday last July.
Black Girl in Om/Taylor S. Hunter
Everyone deserves access to resources that improve their physical and emotional health. But here s another truth: Black women s wellness needs are not always met. And many health care options fail to speak to the unique experiences that Black people face.
No one fares worse from poor treatment than Black women. In the U.S., Black women have the highest pregnancy mortality rates. During the period between 2014 and 2017, the death rate for non-Hispanic Black women was 41.7 per 100,000 live births in comparison to 13.4 deaths per 100,000 live births for non-Hispanic white women. When it comes to mental health care, Black people, in general, are less likely to receive proper treatment, are more likely to receive poor quality care if they do seek treatment, and are more likely to terminate treatment prematurely compared to their white counterparts.
Dec. 21, 2020
For months now, the pandemic has been taking a toll on the mental health of new mothers.
Before the coronavirus crisis upended the lives of new parents, an estimated 14 percent of new mothers suffered from postpartum depression. Now, according to a recent survey of 1,123 pregnant and postpartum women, 36 percent are disclosing symptoms of depression and 22 percent reported symptoms of anxiety. Another 9 percent of the mothers and mothers-to-be said the pandemic had triggered feelings of grief. Before her daughter was born in August, pop singer Katy Perry captured this sentiment in a tweet: “Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse trying to avoid the virus or the waves of depression that come with this new norm.”