This session will provide an overview of racial inequities experienced by racial-ethnic minorities with substance use disorders. A focus on the racialization and criminalization of substance use as primary drivers of race-based disparities will be explored. Strategies for reducing race-based disparities in the diagnosis, treatment, and attrition of racial-ethnic minorities with substance use disorders will be reviewed including disrupting the pervasiveness of colorblind racial ideology, identifying racism as a social determinant of health, and improving existing policies and practices through the incorporation of tools such as a race equity framework.
Jessica Isom, MD, MPH, is a board-certified community psychiatrist and Clinical Instructor in the Yale Department of Psychiatry. She primarily works in Boston, MA as an attending psychiatrist at Codman Square Health Center. She received her MD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also received her MPH with a focus on public health leadership. She currently serves as a member of the American Psychiatric Association Assembly, where her contributions center on illuminating the need for health equity in organized psychiatry. She has also been elected to the Councilor Position for the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society where her focus on social justice and health equity provides an opportunity to improve the care provided to marginalized populations in the state. She has continued to work with the Yale Department of Psychiatry residency program as a faculty track consultant leader for the Social Justice and Health Equity Curriculum. Her professional interests include working towards eradicating racial and ethnic mental health disparities, mitigating the impact of implicit racial bias on clinical care, and the use of a community-focused population health approach in psychiatric practice. Her teaching highlights the history of medical racism, interpersonal challenges in interracial interactions, and provides a language for naming and responding to racism at multiple levels. She currently is working as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant and facilitator for individuals, non-profit organizations, and private companies.
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