Black mental health patients hit hard by COVID-19, social injustice: 'We were already at a breaking point'

CHICAGO — Dr. Brandi Jackson, a psychiatrist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said the COVID-19 pandemic has been her most difficult period as a psychiatrist. With an uptick in anxiety and depression in her primarily Black clientele, she’s seeing patients who have been clean for years relapsing on drugs — and citing the coronavirus as pushing them over the line.Health disparities were prevalent in the Black community before COVID-19. Life expectancy for residents on the North Shore was 30 years longer, on average, than that for residents of Englewood.Suicide attempts that were sel...

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