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RACE
New research from the United States shows it’s common for people to avoid the subject of race in a misguided attempt to show that they’re not racist.

The researchers used a version of the game Guess Who? and found that white people avoided asking black people about race, even when the issue was clearly relevant. All in the Mind talks to Evan Apfelbaum of Tufts University in the USA and Professor Binna Kandola, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist based in Oxford.

MENTAL HEALTH ACT
The new Mental Health Act finally comes into force this week in England and Wales. It’s the first major legislation on mental health for twenty five years and there’s been a battle between the Government and mental health professionals – including psychiatrists – over the new law. Claudia Hammond spoke to Professor Dinesh Bhugra, the new President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

SUICIDE AND SOUTH ASIAN WOMEN IN THE UK
Previous studies have shown that young South Asian women have high suicide rates but a new study, just published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, casts doubt on this. The study highlights new findings that say it’s older South Asian women originally from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan who in fact have double the rates of suicide than other women in the UK.

The results even came as a surprise to the team that discovered them, led by Professor Kwame McKenzie from the University of Toronto in Canada. Claudia asked how these disturbing statistics had remained hidden until now.