Black women are the least likely group to be diagnosed with ADHD, and the research says so plainly. A study of nearly 850,000 ADHD patients found that non-Hispanic white people were about 26 percent more likely to receive a diagnosis than non-Hispanic Black people, and that Black women were least likely of any group studied.
About 15.5 million adults in the United States have ADHD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half of them were diagnosed as adults.
Brianne Saturdays, a nurse and a mother of two who posts about ADHD as @briannesaturdays, was diagnosed at 32 after seeing five psychiatrists. She said the questions she used to ask herself were the wrong ones. “What is wrong with me? Why am I so overstimulated? Why can’t I focus?”
She said the research itself is part of the answer. “The main person that they’re testing and running their studies on and researching is the young white male,” she said. “We’re struggling with regulation.”
The actress Tisha Campbell was diagnosed at 57.
The writer and historian Blair Imani said Black women get less room to be imperfect while they are undiagnosed. “We have a lot less grace,” she said.
A diagnosis you had to see five doctors for is not a late diagnosis.
