The research team carried out a comprehensive synthesis of existing evidence to explain the under-use of primary care mental health services by people in ethnic minority groups and their over-use of crisis care pathways and involuntary admissions to hospital.

The new work is ambitious as it sets out to explain why these inequalities continue to persist despite over five decades of established evidence and government initiatives in this area. 

The findings show that prevailing biomedical models of healthcare which centralise a 'European' and 'white' experience, to the exclusion of alternative ideas of mental health and healthcare are major barriers to equitable care.

Read more on the University of Bristol news item

'Understanding ethnic inequalities in mental healthcare in the UK: A meta-ethnography' by Narinder Bansal et al. in PLOS Medicine