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According to the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration’s 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a quarter of Asian American adults with mental illness had received mental health treatment in the past year. In that same timeframe, more than half of white Americans with mental illness received treatment.

For people seeking mental health care, reaching out and finding a provider can be a deeply personal experience. But for members of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, like Malic and Yu, broadly referred to as the AANHPI community, seeking mental health care can involve not just disclosing personal information, but also negotiating language barriers and cultural stigma from within their own personal histories.

One barrier that can prevent AANHPI individuals from seeking mental health care is the stigma associated with mental illness and mental health challenges in various AANHPI cultures.

Beyond stigma, an additional barrier to mental health care for AANHPI people can be whether or not the provider is able to speak the client’s language.

To combat the barrier of stigma, Malic and others believe talking about mental health has to become normalized within AANHPI communities.

Read more on Cronkite News.

Improving the mental health and wellness of Black Americans requires acknowledging and confronting systemic racism underlying the U.S. political, social, and health care systems that create and maintain racial inequality in every aspect of life for Black people in the U.S.

Centuries of systemic racism have created vast disparities in mental care for Black people in the U.S., leading to unfavorable health outcomes and increased illness. Due to racism, Black Americans are exposed to several risk factors for mental illness, including lower-quality education, impoverished neighborhoods with high rates of homelessness, and exposure to violence with high rates of police brutality.

The new Series of three papers on Black mental health in the U.S., plus an essay from Black Americans with lived experience, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, outlines the overwhelming evidence for the role racism plays in producing, maintaining, and amplifying mental health disparities for Black Americans. Against this background, the authors call for a comprehensive analysis of the conditions and systems in which racism can produce mental health issues while highlighting the potential of community-driven action to reduce inequitable mental health care and outcomes among Black Americans.

Read more at MedicalXpress.com.

Governor Gavin Newsom is promoting a $6 billion measure to tackle the growing homelessness and mental health crisis in California.

Proposition 1 will include modernizing the Mental Health Services Act and Assembly Bill 531, along with a $6.38 billion bond to build new mental health housing and substance abuse treatment centers across California.

The proposition would allocate money to hiring more mental health professionals and provide funding to build more than 11,150 new behavioral health beds and housing and 26,700 outpatient treatment slots, filling “critical needs across the state for homeless Californians with severe behavioral health issues, to kids suffering from depression, and everyone in between.”

“When you see people in the street covered in urine or feces and they’re dirty and pacing or talking or screaming at each other, at anybody, at a wall — we’re so immune to it,” Rice said. “What you’re witnessing is human pain and suffering. These are human beings. We have to stop stepping over, stepping around and avoiding this problem.”

Read more at KTLA.com.

Taressa Penny battled through a high-risk pregnancy and learned to become the best advocate for her health. Penny said her pregnancy was scary because doctors considered her pregnancy high risk. Penny also knew black women die at a higher rate during or soon after giving birth.

Pregnant women of color are more likely to experience stress that can.impact the health of the mother and baby.

She decided to indulge in self care and exercise, but also worked with health care providers she says cared about her physical and mental health.

Dr. Tiffany Ruffin at University Health says postpartum depression is the number one complication of child birth.

“Irritability, not acting like myself, not feeling connected and anxiety,” Dr. Ruffin said. “So also the constant what if’s, the worries, the things that just keep me up at night.”

Pregnant women of color are more likely to experience stress that can impact the health of the mother and baby.

Read more at KSHB.com.

A new bipartisan bill, titled the Home-Based Telemental Health Care Act, aims to increase rural residents’ access to virtual mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment services by authorizing up to $10 million in annual grants through 2027.

People who work in these industries have the fourth-highest suicide rates of any industry, with 36 males per 100,000 dying by suicide, according to the CDC.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would work with the Department of Agriculture to award annual grants to deliver behavioral telehealth services and develop metrics to compare the quality and impact of telehealth appointments versus in-person visits.

Several studies have shown telehealth appointments are as effective as in-person services, although little research has been done to analyze telehealth efficacy of different patient demographic groups.

Read more on BHBusiness.com.

The strength of community-based organizations (CBOs) is knowing and engaging with their own stories and that of their communities to make a difference. Building on previous Elevate CBOs webinars, this four-part series, led by Carlos Morales of Viva Technology will focus on providing the context and tools necessary for behavioral health organizations to convey their impact and move their work to the next level through data storytelling. Though registrants can choose which sessions to attend, we highly recommend you attend all sessions. Registration for the limited-capacity Post-Workshop Q&A Hour will be released after each session.

Through this Elevate CBOs workshop series, attendees will:

• Understand the importance of data storytelling for behavioral health equity work 
• Identify data, stories, and visuals that are optimal for conveying their organizations’ work and impact 
• Learn how to make data, narratives, and visuals that are interesting and palatable to their audiences 
• Gain the tools necessary to market themselves to funders, community members, and other partners  

Session 1

Session 2

Session 3

Session 4

This series is a continuation of the Elevate CBOs Webinar Series, an overarching policy-driven initiative from SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity (OBHE) that began in 2021.

The event will also be shared on Facebook Live at fb.com/nned.net and closed captioning will be available through Zoom.

Speaker