Our Health Policy Matters

In November, 2012, a fourteen-year-old Utah boy named David Q. Phan committed suicide by shooting himself on a pedestrian bridge near his junior high school.  It was reported that he had been the victim of bullying. In June, 2013, the New York Times published a story about three students who committed suicide at East Hampton High School during the past three years.  All three students were Hispanic. Sam Harris, who is half-Native American and half-African American, has written a first-person account of his own experience with mental illness that has been published on SAMHSA’s “Promote Acceptance” web site.   In his account, he reports that he lived for years with symptoms of mental illness without seeking help in part because he believed that he would be stigmatized by “going to the white man” for help. And in a case which has attracted recent national attention in the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, 32-year-old Marissa Alexander – an African Ameri...

In November, 2012, a fourteen-year-old Utah boy named David Q. Phan committed suicide by shooting himself on a pedestrian bridge near his junior high school.  It was reported that he had been the victim of bullying. In June, 2013, the New York Times published a story about three students who committed suicide at East Hampton High School during the past three years.  All three students were Hispanic. Sam Harris, who is half-Native American and half-African American, has written a first-person account of his own experience with mental illness that has been published on SAMHSA’s “Promote Acceptance” web site.   In his account, he reports that he lived for years with symptoms of mental illness without seeking help in part because he believed that he would be stigmatized by “going to the white man” for help. And in a case which has attracted recent national attention in the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict, 32-year-old Marissa Alexander – an African Ameri...