Despite facing frequent experiences with discrimination and rising fears of hate crimes and gun violence, only 24% of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults and 16% of Asian American adults in California say they need mental health support.
Among adults who sought mental health care, 42% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and 31% of Asian Americans had difficulties accessing services, citing cost, lack of insurance and not knowing their options.
To help increase the use of mental health care services among Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Asian American adults, a new report from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and AAPI Data, based at UC Riverside, recommends using more culturally relevant outreach specified for nationalities and languages.
In their report, the researchers used a novel approach. They began with data about Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Asian American, mental health from the CHPR’s California Health Interview Survey, or CHIS, from 2020 through 2022. In addition, AAPI Data and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research initiated the California AANHPI Community Needs Survey — a 15-minute follow-on survey for Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans, who responded to the 2021 and 2022 CHIS.
This rigorous survey data was combined with historical community experiences as influenced by cultural factors, U.S. foreign policy and intergenerational trauma, and feedback from an intentional sample of leaders in various NHPI and Asian American communities.
The report also provides a more granular examination of mental health experiences for eight subgroups within the Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Asian category. Those groups were: Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Vietnamese, other Southeast Asian (excluding Vietnamese), Filipino, South Asian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.
Read more at NewsRoom.UCLA.edu.
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