Olivia I. Okereke, M.D., M.S. is Director of Geriatric Psychiatry and Director of the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Okereke is committed to research in late-life mental health and well-being.

Her programmatic research goals are:

• to employ epidemiologic research methods to identify modifiable risk factors (e.g., diet, lifestyle), as well as related biomarkers, involved in healthy mental aging and,
• to translate and apply knowledge gained into novel, effective strategies for prevention of major adverse mental aging outcomes, such as anxiety, depression and cognitive decline, and racial and ethnic disparities therein.

Her program has been funded by numerous awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Harvard Medical School and research foundations. Dr. Okereke has been a member of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for over two decades. She is a distinguished fellow of the APA and she was a member of the APA Council on Geriatric Psychiatry between 2013 and 2019.

Priorities for the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice include:

APA sat down with Dr. Okereke to learn more about the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice.

Dr. Okereke, can you share the origins of the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice?

This initiative developed in our department over the course of the last couple of years, as there was a heightened awareness around the country about the impacts of racism. This was highlighted by serious incidents of violence targeting Black individuals, as well as the really striking disproportionate impact that we saw the COVID 19 pandemic had on Black, Latino, and other people of color. There was a growing awareness that there’s such a pervasive and destructive impact of racism.

As health care providers and individuals who are involved in health care, we're going to need to attend to - what are the health consequences of this? In our Department of Psychiatry, people looked to their role and thought, well, what is the way that we can address some of this? Maurizio Fava, Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General helped launch a task force in 2020 on issues to address anti-racism, culture, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The task force had several recommendations and one of them involved creating a structure for carrying anti-racism work forward in a sustainable manner. So, the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice grew out of the work of the task force.

How do you see this center being helpful to APA members and clinicians more broadly?

Our community within the American Psychiatric Association is broad. It includes clinicians, researchers, educators - people who run fellowship and residency programs, and of course, people who teach our next generation of providers. What we'll do with the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice will indeed be applicable in some ways outside of our department.

The ability to increase basic academic knowledge about racism within psychiatry, about the mental health impact of racism - that's of utility beyond just any given department. Knowledge and resources – whether in the form of articles or other products that we can put out there – these are things that will be of value to APA members.

Another issue important to me as a researcher is racial equity, diversity, and inclusion within psychiatry research. We well know that this is something on people's minds. There are low levels of inclusion of Black, Latino and Indigenous people and people of color more broadly within research both among the researchers and among research participants. It's an issue relevant to psychiatry that we want to give more attention to and highlight.

What can we expect to see from the center in the near future?

We are pulling together a curated group of resources. We want to understand the knowledge base within psychiatry and racism. What do psychiatrists know about racism? What do they know about the impact of racism on mental health? How do we make sure that we bring ourselves up to speed with that? Our center is not going to duplicate work that's being done well elsewhere so we really have to focus on those things that aren't being covered.

We all need a path for self-education. It's so important that we recognize that work around racial equity and justice is everyone's work. It's the responsibility of everyone. It's not just the responsibility of people who are of color.

Priorities for the MGH Psychiatry Center for Racial Equity and Justice include:

• Increasing academic knowledge within psychiatry about racism and its mental health impacts
• Promoting racial equity, diversity, and inclusion in research for psychiatry
• Collaborating with anti-racism and DEI efforts across Mass General Hospital
  • Increasing academic knowledge within psychiatry about racism and its mental health impacts
  • Promoting racial equity, diversity and inclusion in research for psychiatry
  • Collaborating with anti-racism and DEI efforts across MGH