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Mental Health Service Utilization Among African American Emerging Adults, Sha-Lai Williams

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Mental illness affects 25-30% of US adults ages 18 years and older in a given year. Of those individuals, about 41% fail to utilize mental health services. Research indicates that being African American and between the ages of 18 and 29 are associated with decreased rates of service utilization. Yet, less is known about the factors related to mental health service utilization among a specific subset of these groups, namely, African American emerging adults. Using empirically-tested theoretical frameworks as its foundation, this dissertation study aimed to address this gap in literature by examining specific predisposing, enabling, and need factors: e.g., …