‘I don’t think there’s many British African Caribbean men that talk positively about mental health services’
Risk, trust, racism and the Mental Health Act
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21148938 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jeremy Dixon (0000-0003-0656-5646, Cardiff University, corresponding author), Caroline Leah (0000-0001-6659-7848, Manchester Metropolitan University), Elaine Craig (0000-0002-4252-3956, Manchester Metropolitan University), Alina Haines‐Delmont (0000-0001-6989-0943, Manchester Metropolitan University), Alina Haines-Delmont (Manchester Metropolitan University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Publication date | 2026-02-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Health Risk & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-8575 • E-ISSN: 1469-8331 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13698575.2025.2577454 |
| OpenAlex | W4415414476 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 51 |
Detention under mental health law is based on professional assessments of risk but impacts on patients’ trust. Little attention has been paid by sociologists to the operation of risk, trust and racism during mental health detention processes. Our study addresses this gap through thirteen qualitative interviews with professionals, conducted in England in 2023 focusing on the mental health detention of British African Caribbean men: a group disproportionately detained. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and the SILENCES framework. Participant accounts highlighted mistrust between British African Caribbean men and mental health services. This group’s mental health was seen to be affected at a macro level by poverty, drug misuse and racism, as well as cultural mistrust and bias. Negative assumptions of British African Caribbean men were seen to operate at a meso level through institutional practices within risk management processes that discriminated against them, leading to coercive treatments and poorer outcomes. Micro level factors were largely absent from interviews. Participants stressed the need to rebuild trust with British African Caribbean communities, but the strategies they described overlooked the macro and meso factors identified elsewhere within interviews. The article is significant in highlighting cultural drivers of (mis)trust between mental health services and British African Caribbean men at macro and meso levels
Human rights · Institutional racism · Mental health · Middle Eastern Mental Health Issues & Syndromes · Qualitative research · Racism · Thematic analysis · White British · Child and Adolescent Health · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Migration, Health and Trauma
Experience-based design
Trust in Physicians and Medical Institutions
Modernity and self-identity
Healthcare Providers’ Impact on the Care Experiences of Patients with Endometriosis
Risk and liminality in mental health social work
Positive risk taking
Making Sense of Risk
Mental Health, Race and Culture
InterViews
Thematic Analysis
A structuration framework for bridging the macro–micro divide in health‐care governance
Structural Racism, Workforce Diversity, and Mental Health Disparities
Trust and Health Care
Coercion in the Community
I'm a police officer not a social worker or mental health nurse”
Fear, black people and mental illness
Trust and confidence
Risk and Blame
Black in Blue
Trusting on the Edge
The muddle of institutional racism in mental health
Where next for understanding race/ethnic inequalities in severe mental illness? Structural, interpersonal and institutional racism
Chains of (dis)trust
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |