Jesse Scheckner
Services that help address long-standing ethnic disparities in mental health care could gain access to a $3.5 million grant program under a proposal from two Democratic state lawmakers.
Sen. Rosalind Osgood of Tamarac and Rep. Mitch Rosenwald of Pompano Beach are carrying twin bills (SB 542, HB 469) to allow mental health and substance abuse services to tap into Florida’s Closing the Gap (CTG) program.
To do so, the companies or organizations would have to specify in their grant applications that part of their mission is to decrease “racial and ethnic disparities in morbidity and mortality rates.”
It’s a requirement of 11 health-related service categories already eligible for funds through CTG, a Department of Health-administered program the Legislature created in 2000. Others include neonatal care, maternal health, cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, oral health and child immunization services, and services for several chronic diseases.
“Communities of color have long faced systemic barriers to equitable mental health care and substance abuse services,” Osgood said in a statement. “This bill is a crucial step in ensuring that we are addressing these disparities head-on by prioritizing funding for programs that support those most in need.”
Osgood and Rosenwald’s legislation, effective July 1, would add just two lines to state statutes. One states that CTG funds are open to mental health and addiction services that decrease racial and ethnic disparities. The other would require the Department of Health to give mental health and substance abuse programs that focus on areas with the “greatest documented racial and ethnic disparities” prioritization in its yearly funding awards.
Approximately $3.5 million was allotted to CTG for Fiscal Year 2024-25, program documents show.
“Unfortunately, Black and Brown communities have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than their white counterparts — an inequity rooted in systematic oppression,” Rosenwald said in a statement. “This bill’s passage holds great promise to reducing racial inequities by increasing access to care.”
Compared to White people, people of color and Indigenous people are less likely to have easy access to mental health services or seek out services to begin with, according to the American Counseling Association. They’re also more likely to receive worse care and end service prematurely.
Similar disparities exist with addiction treatment, in which a recent study found that White people receive safer substance abuse mediation 80% more frequently than Black people, who account for just 5% of all physicians in the United States.
State lawmakers have historically supported the CTG’s aims. In the past decade, both chambers unanimously approved — and the Governor subsequently signed — measures in 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021 to make more health service types eligible for CTG funds.
SB 542 and HB 469, both filed Friday, await committee referrals.
