Abstract
Despite anti-stigma campaigns in the UK in recent years, the experiences of people with mental health problems indicate that stigma is still a major problem. The stigma of being a member of a socially excluded group, based on socioeconomic, personal or cultural/ethnic characteristics, should be considered alongside the stigma of mental illness. Membership of a stigmatised group (not based on mental illness) is often itself a risk factor for developing mental health problems. This article discusses the experiences of people from Black and minority ethnic and lesbian, gay and bisexual groups to explore how stigma can create more stigma.
Highlights
The past decade has seen much activity aimed at transforming the experiences of people affected by mental health problems: trying to reduce the associated stigma
Objectives over 4 years include 5% reduction in discrimination for people with mental health problems and 5% improvement in public attitudes
Looking at the example of people from Black and minority ethnic (BME) and lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) groups, it can be seen that both share some similarities in terms of being socially excluded based on ethnicity and/or sexuality and in having a significantly higher prevalence of mental health problems than the general population (Box 3)
Summary
The past decade has seen much activity aimed at transforming the experiences of people affected by mental health problems: trying to reduce the associated stigma. Objectives over 4 years include 5% reduction in discrimination for people with mental health problems and 5% improvement in public attitudes. Some of the latest empirical evidence of the experiences of people with mental health problems shows some strikingly similar results to evidence gathered 10 years ago.[2,3] researchers in the Stigma Shout survey[4] found that nine out of ten service users reported that stigma had a negative impact on their lives and two-thirds of them cited that fear of discrimination deterred them from doing things they wanted to do.
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