Press cutting: Being black in Britain is bad for your mental health

I have had problems being a psychiatrist since the first day I worked in the Maudsley hospital.

The Maudsley is in south London, and every day I saw more and more young people of African and Caribbean origin developing serious mental illnesses. As a young black man I identified with them, found it disturbing, and vowed to do something about it: so I started research in the area. …

Over the last 30 years there have been 20 studies showing that people of Caribbean and African origin have an increased risk of being treated for serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and mania. The increased rate is of epidemic proportions - between five and 12 times greater than for white people. And if anything, it is getting worse. …

It is hard to believe that this increased rate is not at least in part due to a true increase in the amount of illness. This is backed up by years of research and a recent international review, which concluded that migrants are more likely to develop mental illness. But the risk is doubled in black migrants to white countries, and the risk is increased again in their children. It seems that it is not about migration alone or being black - it is about being black in a white country. …

We have some of the best mental health services in the world but we are nowhere near a cure for psychosis. Where there is no cure, prevention is important, and where there is an increased rate of illness in a group they should be the target for prevention. But we have no prevention strategy. …

Though we will not be able to prevent all psychosis, we should be able to prevent some of it. We know that psychotic illnesses are associated with poverty, poor education, racism, living in a city, poor obstetric care, head injuries or brain infection when you are young, childhood trauma, family break-up, and cannabis use. We know that targeting childhood and adolescence is important.

Prevention of mental illness in black communities is the sort of complex problem that should attract a high-level government inquiry that leads to action. I am used to hearing politicians say that doing nothing is not an option. This is an area where the phrase has real meaning. The high rates of mental illness in people of Caribbean and African origin are not going to go away. If anything, their legacy will blight a generation and the impact will be felt by us all. …

Dr Kwame McKenzie, UCL Mental Health Sciences, 'The Guardian'