From the Underground Railroad to the Great Migration when Black Southerners moved north to places like Buffalo for factory jobs, Western New York has a rich African American history.
The bleaker side of that history — like segregation — still impacts people today, especially when it comes to health. Buffalo’s black residents' life expectancy is five years shorter than white residents’ according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data in the Advancing Health Equity and Inclusive Growth in Buffalo report.
"There's a lot of health problems, health disparities in the African American communities. And we often talk about them physically, right? The things we can see, the high cancer rates, the highest diabetes rates, high blood pressure rates," said Pastor George Nicholas, Lincoln Memorial United Methodist.
In December, the African American Health Equity Task Force and the University at Buffalo launched the UB Community Health Research Institute to tackle these health disparities on the East Side focusing on zip codes like 14204 ( Old First Ward) or 14206 (Lovejoy and Kaisertown.)
Nicholas is a part of a subgroup of that partnership will focus on mental health.
"What we don't talk enough about are the crisis, the mental health crisis that we have in the African American community,” he said.
That coalition works with other religious leaders to address mental health stigma in the black community.
"We have to kind of break that silence that is too prevalent in the African American community. We have to empower people to be able to be transparent about their challenges,” Nicholas said. “Then we have to equip people, leaders in the community, to be able to respond in the appropriate ways."
One of the ways that coalition is equipping leaders is through hosting an open meeting on May 7 called “Mental Health in Black Churches,” which will be at Lincoln Memorial United Methodist.
The event will bring different religious leaders, including Minister Kelly Wofford from Impacting Love Global Ministry, together to talk about how they can better address the needs of their community.
"The purpose is to bring together people to talk about what works,” Wofford said. "We have to be solution-focused in order to change the culture. We have to come up with a path forward. We just can't say, ‘Oh, there's a problem,’ and walk away. We can't just throw a scripture on it.”
Part of those solutions includes addressing other barriers to care beyond stigma.
Addressing inequalities in poverty, transportation, access to food, and other social determinants of health could improve those disparities by 10 to 20 percent, said Timothy Murphy, the UB Community Health Research Institute director.
"Mental health just permeates all of the social determinants of health,” he said. "If you're struggling around mental health challenges it makes it more difficult to deal with the poverty and the impacts of the effects of poverty."
But if those social determinants of health are negative, such as living in poverty, can also negatively impact your mental health, Murphy said.
One of the ways to improve mental health outcomes — specifically in the neighborhoods that the African American Health Equity Task Form is focusing on — is through educating black religious leaders to talk about stigma, learn resources available in the community, and create an environment that serves its people.
"If people knew that their pastor had received some training around mental health issues, I think they might be more likely to come to that pastor and to say, ‘Listen, there's some things, I need to talk to you,’" Nicholas said.
Join Camalot Todd and Minister Kelly Wofford for this month’s #IAm1in5 Facebook Live where you can ask questions about these stories, mental health, and more on Feb. 25 at 1:30 p.m.