Understanding Mental Health and Substance Use in Minority Adolescents: A Critical Analysis

Substance use among mentally ill adolescents has been growing in prevalence in modern-day America (Herz et al., 2017). The relationship between teen drug use and mental health diagnosis continues to be explored by analysts. In recent studies, alcohol consumption, nicotine, and drugs have been linked with affective and externalizing disorders, including academic failure, behavioral problems, and suicide ideation (Herz et al., 2017). The psychosocial consequences of such maladaptive coping mechanisms of mentally ill teens continue to be a center of widespread concern. Such teens often project traits that depart significantly from societal norms. Their emotional and behavioral processes often create problems in adapting to the prevailing conditions (Herz et al., 2017).

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While the psychosocial maladaptation of mentally ill and substance-using teens has been described in various pieces, their social and demographic causation and consequences have not been sufficiently analyzed (Miller, 2020; Gould et al., 2018). Adolescents of various racial persuasions, for instance, often respond differently to the mental health diagnosis. Minority races and ethnic groups often express poor help-seeking tendencies for these conditions (Herz et al., 2017). As a result, they may sink deeper into drug and substance use to respond to their hidden mental health conditions. This problem of minority groups and their adolescent maladaptive coping behavior has not been explored enough in both theory and practice (Miller, 2020).

The black community in America, specifically, continues to experience a trend of adolescent maladaptive behavior (Gould et al., 2018). Studies exploring the violent behavior of such minority teens often focus on symptomatic expressions of such deviant behavior. Instead, analyses should pay attention to these individuals' psychosocial and cognitive patterns as causative factors for behavioral tendencies. This study, thus, proposes an analysis of the mental health conditions in these minority adults and their trends in drug use as adaptive methodologies.

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