News

45,390 American adults died from suicide in 2017, including 6,139 U.S. Veterans. The nation is understandably grieving with each suicide, prompting our collective and tireless pursuit of evidence-based clinical interventions and expansion of community prevention strategies to reach each Veteran.

As part of recent efforts to support Veterans in crisis, VA is using artificial intelligence (AI) systems capabilities leveraged by customer feedback industry best practices in partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte, Medallia, and Halfaker to detect and respond to Veterans in crisis.

Starting in fall 2017, VA began digitally collecting customer feedback from Veterans receiving VA services and VA digital properties in the Veterans Signals (VSignals) program. Since then, Veterans have responded with more than 4.2 million surveys, including more than 1.6 million free-text comments. This feedback is accessible to VA employees across the country for action, often prompting customer service efforts and influencing VA decision making.

Veteran feedback is also used to measure trust in VA; as of November 5, 2019, Veterans measured Veterans Health Administration Outpatient Care trust at 87.8%. A recent Partnership for Public Service study credited VA for its mature customer experience data program an essential indicator to VA’s customer experience improvements.

The artificial intelligence systems capabilities developed by the Veterans Experience Office (VEO) searches through Veteran survey responses in real-time and highlights Veterans that may be in crisis. Crisis alerts are routed to the VA National Call Center for Homeless Veterans (NCCHV), Veteran Crisis Line (VCL), or other various VA offices that can offer assistance. This system has already engaged and led to early intervention for more than 1,400 Veterans in need to provide them assistance within minutes of the alert.

VA is listening to Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors – and taking action. VA is committed to providing assistance to Veterans who may be in need of support. It’s our hope that Veterans will continue to seek assistance using all the resources made available to them, both in their local communities and nationally through the VA. As this program continues to grow, VA is optimistic that technology like this will elevate efforts to support and assist the Veterans in crisis across the country.

Read more on VA.gov.

Traditionally, lack of mental health knowledge is inherited from Asia. Most immigrants do not know what a psychologist does. When immigrants immigrated to the US, many spoke of how therapy was not an option for most poor families due to high cost of treatment and lack of insurance. The inaccessibility of mental health services in their countries of origin forces many poor Asians to suffer alone. Poor Asian immigrants and refugees often suffer from pockets of trauma stemming from poverty while battling undiagnosed mental disorders. When lack of access to mental health services is normalized, it is then passed onto the next generation. But Asian Americans are greeted with many other barriers in the US.

J. Abe-Kim et al. (2007) stated, in their study, Use of mental health-related services among immigrant and US-born Asian Americans: results from the National Latino and Asian American study, “Barriers identified as negatively affecting the use of mental health-related services include cultural barriers (e.g., stigma, loss of face, causal beliefs), culturally unresponsive services (lack of language match, lack of ethnic match, poor cross-cultural understanding), limited access to care (cost, lack of insurance coverage), and lack of understanding to services.” Because of all these barriers, it is difficult for Asian-Americans to seek out the mental health services they need.

It is also difficult for clinicians to provide appropriate services to both the Asian immigrant population and US-born Asian Americans. There is not enough data on both groups (J. Abe-Kim & et al., 2007). Our struggles are very different, and Asian Americans need services catering to both populations. Asian immigrants need providers that speaks their language fluently and is culturally competent. US-born Asian Americans need therapists who are more culturally sensitive.

Asian clients have a higher drop-out rate in counseling than other minority clients. Non-Asian therapists are quick to jump to negative conclusions about us. They dismiss our parents as “emotionally-abusive” and our culture as “toxic”. Therapists should study the historical and cultural context of each Asian ethnic group. Rather, many treat every Asian face as a monolith. Most will not even entertain the idea of researching each Asian culture and the possible traumas that likely affect their patients. Adequate training and more diversity in mental health services are much needed.

Read more on PlanAMag.com.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. Greenhope Services for Women Inc., has been selected as the Partner of the Month for March in celebration of National Women’s History Month.

Greenhope was established in 1975 in a convent that was transformed into a comprehensive residential treatment program for formerly incarcerated women. Over the years, it has developed formal relationships with the criminal justice system and has expanded its work to include services for women on parole and those referred by the courts as an alternative to incarceration (ATI).
Located in East Harlem, Greenhope’s commitment to providing quality services to predominantly poor African American and Latina ex-offenders has made it a leader in working with women to address the problems that lead to a life of drugs and crime. It is one of the few woman-centered facilities operating in New York State, which serves both parolees and ATI clients.

To date, Greenhope has helped over 4,000 women reclaim their lives, reunite with their families and rebuild their communities.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Community Based Residential Program (CBRP) – The Community Based Residential Program is designed for parolee women needing substance abuse residential services. The population is primarily composed of women just released from New York State prison. It is an intensive six-month program. Clients are expected to attend and participate in substance abuse education and counseling, vocational and educational groups, parenting skills development workshops, empowerment groups, and recreational activities.
• Residential Stabilization Program (RSP)– The Residential Stabilization Program is a three-month program for women parolees who are usually already in the community and are currently in crisis situations such as domestic violence, loss or lack of housing, etc. Services may extend to four months only with the approval of the Division of Parole. Clients are assessed for services and are referred accordingly. Clients are expected to attend and participate in substance abuse education and counseling, vocational and educational groups, parenting skills development workshops, empowerment groups, and recreational activities.
• Residential Alternative to Incarceration Program (RATI) – The Residential ATI program is designed for women requiring in-patient substance abuse services. Clients are referred from New York City drug treatment, family and supreme courts. They are mandated to participate and complete all treatment stipulations set by Greenhope and the courts. Clients receive court advocacy services to assist in gaining probation and/or dismissal of their convictions. |
• Outpatient Aftercare – The outpatient program serves women on parole, women referred as an alternative to incarceration and women from the community requiring substance abuse services. These women may or may not have participated in Greenhope’s residential and/or day treatment programs. Some clients may have parole and/or court stipulations that they participate in aftercare outpatient services.
• Family Development – The Family Development program is designed to meet the multiple and complex needs of mothers who are chemically dependent and are mandated to treatment as a condition of public assistance eligibility and those re-entering society after incarceration. This program is designed to prevent children from being placed in or returned to foster care, to prevent relapse, and to assist mothers in achieving self-sufficiency.
• Vocational and Educational Services – Greenhope provides a vocational assessment, counseling, evaluation, academic support, GED preparation, vocational workshops, job training, and job placement for all clients.

Learn more about Greenhope Services for Women Inc. and their mission to help women involved in the criminal justice system, who also have a substance abuse addiction, to reclaim and rebuild their lives, in the State of New York.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

A study from the University of Washington finds that among transgender older adults, those who had served in the military reported fewer symptoms of depression and greater mental health-related quality of life. The findings were published in a February special supplement of The Gerontologist.

The paper is part of a national, groundbreaking longitudinal study of LGBT older adults, known as “Aging with Pride: National Health, Aging, Sexuality/Gender Study,” which focuses on how a range of demographic factors, life events and medical conditions are associated with health and quality of life.

Estimated numbers of U.S. military personnel who are transgender vary widely, but range between one-tenth and three-quarters of 1 percent of the roughly 2 million active-duty and reserve forces. A study from UCLA estimates about 134,000 transgender veterans in the United States.

The new paper, by researchers from the UW School of Social Work, explores how military service affects transgender people because previous data indicated that, among LGBT people over age 50, those who identified as transgender were more likely to be veterans than lesbians, gay men or bisexuals.

Reports have indicated that transgender individuals serve in the military at higher rates than people in the general population. In the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey of 28,000 individuals, 15 percent said they had served, compared to about 9 percent of the U.S. population overall. And yet, little is known about how military service influences the well-being of transgender veterans later in life.

Other studies have shown that transgender veterans suffer higher rates of depression than other veterans. UW researchers were somewhat surprised, then, to learn that the transgender veterans they surveyed tended to have better mental health than transgender people who hadn’t served, said lead author Charles Hoy-Ellis, a former UW doctoral student who is now an assistant professor at the University of Utah College of Social Work.

The traditionally masculine culture of the U.S. military would seem to be a potentially difficult environment for someone who doesn’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth, he said.

But military service creates its own kind of identity, the authors said, because it presents often dangerous and traumatic challenges; overcoming those challenges builds resilience. And that’s where the identity as a transgender person enters the picture.

“Many people develop an identity as a military person — that it’s not just something they did but something that they are,” said Hoy-Ellis. “If transgender people, who are among the most marginalized, can successfully navigate a military career, with so many of the dynamics around gender in the general population and in the military, then that experience can contribute to a type of identity cohesiveness.”

Read more on Washington.edu.

University of Hawai‘i Cancer Center studies show Native Hawaiian and African American smokers have a higher risk of acquiring lung cancer than smokers of other ethnic/racial groups.

The study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that for the same amount of smoking, Native Hawaiians and African Americans have twice the risk of getting lung cancer than Japanese Americans and Latinos, with the risk of Caucasian smokers being intermediate. This new analysis of almost 5,000 cases in the Multi-ethnic Cohort Study shows major differences in the risk of lung cancer among smokers from various ethnic/racial groups.

The findings also suggest that the higher risk of lung cancer for African American smokers and lower risk for Japanese American smokers are due to differences in smoking intensity (the amount of nicotine and tobacco carcinogens inhaled from each cigarette). However, the increased risk for Native Hawaiian smokers remains unexplained.

“It is still not clear why these striking ethnic disparities exist in the risk of lung cancer,” said Loic Le Marchand, principal investigator and UH Cancer Center epidemiologist. “By better understanding differences in the way people smoke and the biological changes that lead to lung cancer, we hope to help reduce ethnic/racial disparities in the occurrence of this deadly disease.”

In Hawai‘i, Native Hawaiians have the highest rate of lung cancer compared to other ethnic groups. In 2016, Hawai‘i State Department of Health statistics reported an overall smoking rate in Hawai‘i of 14 percent; however, 27 percent of Native Hawaiians were smokers.

“Native Hawaiians should particularly be advised to not start smoking or to quit if they are still smoking. We know that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer in all populations and that avoiding smoking lowers one’s risk of lung cancer substantially. Smoking causes 90 percent of all lung cancers and increases the risk of many other types of cancer and chronic conditions,” said Le Marchand.

In order to understand the ethnic/racial disparities linked to lung cancer, UH Cancer Center researchers have initiated a new study and seek to recruit 300 volunteers of Japanese, Caucasian or Hawaiian ancestry who are current cigarette smokers. The objectives are to identify biomarkers in blood and urine that are associated with lung cancer risk and to improve understanding of the mechanisms underlying the risk.

Read more on Khon2.com.

LGBTQ youth are 40% less likely to attempt suicide if they have just one accepting adult in their lives, according to new survey data released by the Trevor Project.

This adult does not have to be a parent, although accepting parents were among the adults mentioned in the results. Other accepting adults could be a caregiver, family member, guidance counselor, teacher or health care provider.

“I definitely think that having a couple accepting adults in my life was really helpful for me,” said freshman cinema major Zoey Hornbeck. “Throughout school I had a lot of teachers who were supportive and I used them as a safe space. I definitely think these people helped me when I was in a dark place in my life.”

Hornbeck, who is transgender, also added that her mother’s support meant a lot to her.

“I experienced a lot of hate from everyone but her,” she said.

The Trevor Project’s website says many LGBTQ children and teenagers experience stress related to not feeling accepted, which can contribute to mental illnesses. Previous research by the group found a link between support from others and decreased suicide attempts in LGBTQ people.

Eric Berdis, a graduate assistant at the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs said there is now more support for LGBTQ youth than when he graduated high school in 2008.

“We didn’t have a gay-straight alliance at my school. The drama club did have a safe zone sign on it, saying that this was a safe teacher,” Berdis said. “Growing up, the signal was so hidden that you wouldn’t even notice it if you weren’t looking for it.

Berdis also said queer adult role models can help young LGBTQ people feel accepted and think about their own futures. When he was younger, he had a hard time thinking about his career and becoming an artist. Now, he’s a craft and material studies major.

“I’m grateful that there are things like Instagram and other social media to show me how queer adults are able to exist,” Berdis said. “[In high school] I had people who were supportive, but no one ever said ‘I’m gay, I’m fabulous and I’m here’ to me until I went to college.”

Read more on CommonWealthTimes.org.