When you talk to Dr. Henry Willis, you can hear in his voice just how much his research work means to him.
“I really love it,” Dr. Willis emphasized during a recent interview with the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF).
A Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Assistant Professor, Dr. Willis is the Director of The Cultural Resilience, Equity and Technology Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Dr. Willis is also an IOCDF Grant Recipient, having been awarded a Jenike Young Investigator Award in 2018 for his study on obsessive compulsive symptoms in African American young adults. Dr. Willis’ research looks to expand the current landscape by seeking greater representation and examining how cultural factors, like racial identity, can impact mental health. Dr. Willis hopes that his findings will help adapt evidence-based treatments to better fit different cultural needs.
Dr. Willis’ career studying OCD began when he was pursuing his PhD and serving as a Research Assistant at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. “While I was there, I began to learn a lot about OCD symptoms and also OCD treatments,” Dr. Willis noted.
But there was something else Dr. Willis observed. “I also began to see a lack of diversity in the studies in our center, despite us being located in a predominantly Hispanic or a Latine community, and also despite us being very near an African American community,” Dr. Willis said. “It really began to spark my curiosity around how much do we actually know about the experience of OCD in Black Americans and how may different unique cultural experiences and traditions that Black Americans have might impact the way those symptoms are presenting and even how effective treatments might be.”
As Dr. Willis explained, he also began to question whether evidence-based treatments for OCD were “adequately helping Black Americans due to this lack of representation in these research centers.”
So Dr. Willis took action. During his time at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, he began to take on diversity initiatives to increase outreach to Black Americans and Black communities in New York.
This work helped Dr. Willis form the basis of his Master’s thesis, and from there, Dr. Willis explained, “I began to theoretically explore how experiences of race and racism might be shaping the symptoms of OCD.”
As Dr. Willis described, his explorations revealed that “experiences of racial discrimination actually exacerbated OCD symptoms for Black young adults.” Dr. Willis also found that some racial identity beliefs not only protected against the stress that was caused by racial discrimination but were also associated with fewer OCD symptoms over time for Black young adults.
“This formed the basis of this study because I really wanted to begin to understand the why,” Dr. Willis said.
As Dr. Willis describes, there are several reasons why focusing on OCD in the Black community is critical.
According to Dr. Willis:
- Black Americans suffer from OCD at the same rates as other racial-ethnic groups in the United States.
- Black Americans with OCD are less likely to have access to or receive evidence-based treatments for their OCD symptoms.
Dr. Willis stressed that “focusing on OCD in the Black community is actually meeting an urgent public health need to increase access to mental health treatments in this group.”
“This can also help us begin to tackle what we know exists,” Dr. Willis said, describing the “intergenerational mistrust among those of us in the Black community that have been historically mistreated by the mental health care system.”
For Dr. Willis, the work is not only professionally but personally important. “Identifying as a Black American, this is not only just research for me, this is also my lived experience. This underscores just my passion for really trying to be a leader in new science and researching things that might be understudied,” Dr. Willis said.
Asked what it means to be leading the field in this way, Dr. Willis said, “it means we're able to put a spotlight on this very understudied area of research.”
Reiterating the lack of diversity in research that he first encountered as a graduate student, Dr. Willis noted that his study not only “helps us on the scientific landscape to improve our understanding” but also “opens doors for a lot of young scholars of color.”
Dr. Willis encouraged future Black researchers to see their own value: “Know that your questions and curiosity are valid, and it belongs in the space of academia,” Dr. Willis said.
“Now that we're still continuing to do the work, I hope that other young graduate students, especially Black graduate students, can see that their voice matters, their questions matter, and their research matters.”
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