This August we lost a towering figure in American community psychiatry. Carl Bell, M.D., died suddenly on Aug. 2 at the age of 71. Among community psychiatrists, Bell was a luminary whose work on cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors in mental illness was seminal.

Bell’s influence—as a clinician, researcher, educator, mentor, public health advocate, and activist—was vast, broad, and deep. He was a pioneer in at least four major areas: research on the effects of early childhood trauma, especially in disadvantaged minority communities; the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome on later psychosocial development; violence prevention; and HIV prevention and treatment. Bell was passionately committed to the African American community of the South Side of Chicago.

On Oct. 5, a session at APA’s meeting in New York, IPS: The Mental Health Services Conference, highlighted the contributions of Dr. Bell to the field of psychiatry. The session included a screening of portions of a 2018 interview with Dr. Carl Bell about the contributions of African American psychiatrists to the APA, and about his own work against structural racism and racial mental health inequalities. The screening was followed by a panel discussion with Altha Stewart, M.D., past president of the APA; Danielle Hairston, M.D., chair of the APA Black Caucus; and Danielle Jackson, M.D., M.P.H., the APA Black Caucus Resident-Fellow Member/Early-Career Psychiatrist representative.

You can view the interview below.

Interview with Dr. Carl Bell

This interview with Dr. Bell was written, directed and filmed by the APA Council on Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities' Committee on History and Intergenerational Dialog. Contributors to this effort include Drs. Helena Hansen, Walter Wilson, Keith Hermanstyne, Louisa Olushoga, Carine Nzodom, Samra Sahlu, Jai Gandhi, Kimberly Gordon, Nhut Tran, and Emily Wu. The video was edited by Tim Cahill.