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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community - 3. Mental Disorders and Suicide
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980 An American Dilemma
that Negroes now have a higher true rate of mental disease than do whites
in the South. But the discrimination, if any, is so minor in the North, and
the discrepancy in the rates between Negroes and whites is so great, that it
is practically certain that Negroes have more mental disease in the North
than do whites.
The only detailed and comprehensive study of the mental disease of
Negroes is that by Benjamin Malzberg for New York State in 1929-1931.^“
He found the Negro rate of first admissions to state hospitals to be 15
1
per 100,000 population, as compared to 74 for whites. Even for New York
City alone, Negroes had a much higher rate than did whites.*® These great
discrepancies existed in spite of the fact that the Negroes were a younger
population and the young generally have less insanity. The Negro rate in
New York State, standardized to hold age constant, was 225 per 100,000
population, as compared to 97 for whites. The Negro rates exceeded the
white rates at every age.
It is clear that the great discrepancy between Negroes and whites In New
York State Is due to migration. There was practically no difference in the
rate of Negroes and whites born in New York State (40 as compared to
45).® Also there was only a relatively small difference between Negroes
and whites born in states other than New York (186 as compared to 15 1),
and this difference was probably due to the greater divergence in the
places that Negroes came from. Conditions of life in the South, from which
most Negroes in the North have come, are the most important reason for
the higher mental disease rate of Negroes, as we shall see when we come
to consider specific types of mental diseases. Also it is disorganizing to
have to change one’s home, job, friends, manner of living, especially if
that change is as great as that from the rural South to the urban North.
Too, the people who make these moves are generally the least satisfied and
least secure j
otherwise they would not be making the change.**
The conditions under which Negroes live are reflected in the types of
mental diseases predominant among them. There are two types of mental
disease which are 3 or 4 times as prevalent among Negroes as among whites
(New York State, 1929-1931):*^ general paresis, which is a consequence
of syphilis, and the psychoses that sometimes follow too great indulgence in
alcohol. Clearly the high syphilis rate among Negroes—and the family
disorganization and poor health facilities in the South, which are behind
it—is.a major cause of the high mental disease rate of Negroes in the North.
The poverty of Negroes in both South and North, and the disorganization
• The slightly higher rate for whites is undoubtedly due to the fact that the white popula-
tion was 8 years older, on the average, than the Negro population.
**
It is not necessary to claim that migrants are least successful or most successful. For
purposes of explaining the correlation between migration and mental disorder, it is enough
to claim that migrants are least satisfied, irrespective of their degree of success.
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