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Spanish-speaking Americans across the U.S. say they have a hard time finding mental health care services in their native language. Only 5.5% of U.S. psychologists say they’re able to administer mental health care services in Spanish, according to a survey released by the American Psychological Association in September 2016, the most recent data available. In all, 44.9% of psychologists said they were “quite or extremely knowledgeable” about working with Hispanic patients.

The demand for full-time psychologists within the Hispanic community is expected to surge 30% by the year 2030. That’s second highest only to “other racial/ethnic minority groups” – including Asians, Native Americans and multiracial people – with a growth of 32%, according to the American Psychological Association. African Americans will see an 11% increase, and whites a 2% decrease.

Critics say mental health providers are simply not keeping up with the nation’s growing Hispanic population, which reached 59.9 million in 2018, or roughly 18% of the U.S. population.

This disparity is noteworthy, in part, because Latino Americans face unique mental health issues compared to the country’s population at large. The National Alliance on Mental Illness found Hispanics tend to struggle with common mental health disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcoholism at an average rate, but are at higher risk for severe mental health problems, in part because of the poor quality of treatment they tend to receive.

“Even though we grow up here in America and we’re American citizens and we consider ourselves proud Americans, there are things that we grow up with in our culture or in our family that are difficult to translate to an English-speaking therapist or English-speaking community,” Jasmine Alcala says. “Being able to have someone with a Spanish-speaking background who understands the invisible rules of our culture just really made sense.”

Read more on USAToday.com.

Police shootings of unarmed black Americans have adverse effects on the mental health of other black Americans in the general population, according to a study published Thursday in The Lancet. The report was released just two days after a police officer shot and killed Antwon Rose, an unarmed black teen who was fleeing a traffic stop in Pittsburgh.

Exposure to one or more police killings within a three-month period was associated with a 0.35 day increase in poor mental health days, according to the report, which combined data on police shootings with individual-level data from a nationally representative self-report survey on health. Adverse mental health effects were not observed among white respondents and resulted only from police killings of unarmed black Americans (not unarmed white Americans or armed black Americans).

The researchers used self-reported race to identify black American respondents to the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a nationally representative telephone survey that collects health data from U.S. adults. Information collected from the 2013-2015 BRFSS was combined with available data with the timing of police killings as reported in the Mapping Police Violence database, which has tracked police killings in the United States since 2013.

A total of 38,993 of the 103,710 black American respondents were exposed to one or more police killings of unarmed black Americans in their state of residence in the months prior to the survey. Each additional police killing of an unarmed black American in the respondent’s state of residence in the months prior to interview was associated with a 0.14 day increase in the number of poor mental health days. 

Read more on PsychNews.org.

The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), on behalf of NIH, led the development and publication of The Trans-NIH Strategic Plan for Women’s Health Research, outlining NIH’s goals for advancing science for the health of women over the next 5 years. One of three guiding principles of the Strategic Plan posits that the influences on the health of women include—in addition to sex and age—race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, geographic location, disability status, and other factors. Rigorous scientific research that accounts for these influences can help us understand and address the health concerns of all populations of women, particularly women from minority populations that bear a disproportionate burden of illness.

A cursory glance at maternal morbidity and mortality statistics, for example, confirms unequivocally how health disparities between racial and ethnic groups abound in the United States. Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White women. More than twice as many African American mothers receive no prenatal care or prenatal care only late in their pregnancies as White mothers. Although maternal mortality is on the rise for all demographic groups in this country, Black women have experienced the fastest rate of increase, up to 12 times faster than the rate for White women in some areas.

Maternal mortality rates are also elevated among Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and some Asian and Hispanic subgroups in certain regions of the United States. Black women have the highest rates of 22 of the 25 indicators of severe maternal morbidity established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and more than twice the risk of severe maternal morbidity of White women. Black women have higher rates of preeclampsia than other racial groups, and pregnant women in general with new-onset hypertension are more likely to die of cardiovascular disease later in life. In New York City, Black and Hispanic women are more likely than White women to deliver in hospitals with higher rates of severe maternal morbidity. Nationwide, racial and ethnic trends in maternal morbidity and mortality as they relate to site of delivery are similar to those in New York City.

Read more on NIMHD.com.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Puerto Rican Organization for Community Education and Economic Development, (PROCEED, Inc.) has been selected as the Partner of the Month for September in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

PROCEED’s mission is to provide and connect people to educational, health and human services; and enhance the capacity of individuals and organizations to offer quality programs and services to their communities locally in New Jersey, and throughout the United States and its territories.

PROCEED constantly evaluates to identify consumer needs and responds to these by incorporating new state of the art programs and services. Every year, PROCEED provides an array of social, health, and energy conservation services to approximately 16,000 individuals and families throughout Union County, most of which are free or provided on a sliding-scale.

A few of PROCEED’s services include:

• Mental Health and Substance Use Treatment: PROCEED provides individual and group substance abuse/alcohol abuse treatment, counseling, and educational workshops aimed at raising community awareness about substance abuse.
• Family Success Center: PROCEED has a James Kellogg Family Success Center as a safe space for diverse families representing many cultures, nationalities, languages, religions, and lifestyles to become more joyous, loving, and resilient.
• HIV/AIDS Services: PROCEED provides counseling and testing, prevention case management, health education, risk reduction workshops, client support groups, community outreach, treatment education, and transitional housing for men living with HIV/AIDS.
• National Center for Training, Support, and Technical Assistance: NCTSTA provides capacity building, training, and technical assistance in the areas of organizational infrastructure enhancement, program and curriculum development, and implementation of HIV and substance abuse prevention interventions.

Learn more about PROCEED, Inc. and their work to support communities that are strong, diverse and sustainable, where people are supported to overcome life’s challenges!

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

Asian-American students are expected to be successful in school, and first-generation students are expected to have grit and a strong work ethic. However, the lawsuit against Harvard for the suicide of Luke Tang and recent death of sophomore Kirk Wu at my school reveal that such stereotypes are harmful.

An article by U.S. News reports that college students are becoming more proactive in addressing their mental health. However, why do Asian students remain the least likely to seek help? It is recognized that other cultures have experiences with mental health, but it is striking that Asian students don’t seek help as much as their peers.

In reality, many cultural factors affect the mental health of Asian-Americans, preventing them from actively seeking help for mental health. In a traditional Asian household, the family unit holds great importance. Each person has a clear role in this hierarchy. Specifically, if you are a child, you must work hard in school to support your parents when they retire. You must set aside any pain because you cannot neglect the people who raised you. Being a son of Asian immigrants, it is even harder to do so because mental health is not discussed in Asian households. Sons are expected to remain level-headed while handling the most work.

However, Asian American students need to know that they are not alone in their struggle with mental health. The amount of cultural expectations may feel overwhelming. However, the current generation should not surrender to these expectations. By becoming more active in managing our own mental health, one can break the negative stigma of mental health in Asian cultures.

Read more at NextShark.com.