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In honor of Black History Month, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is hosting a virtual roundtable featuring speakers with lived experience, community leaders, and practitioners to discuss behavioral health challenges in Black communities. Through personal stories and innovative programs, speakers will highlight the often untapped cultural resources that lessen the burden of disease and promote resiliency. This roundtable will showcase unity among community in celebration of culture and history.

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

Opening Remarks

Moderator

Speakers

Closing Remarks

Veterans who are in a suicidal crisis can now seek emergency care at any medical facility at no cost to them.

Starting Tuesday, veterans will have free access to inpatient care or crisis residential care for up to 30 days and outpatient care for up to 90 days, the Department of Veterans Affairs said in a press release last week.

The VA says the program will lift the burden of expensive treatment costs for veterans and provide acute suicide care access for up to 9 million veterans who are not enrolled with the federal department.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement the “expansion of care will save lives.”

“Veterans in suicidal crisis can now receive the free, world-class emergency health care they deserve — no matter where they need it, when they need it, or whether they’re enrolled in VA care,” McDonough said.

Regardless of VA enrollment status, veterans who were discharged from active duty after more than 24 months and who were not dishonorably discharged are eligible for the program.

Also eligible are those who served more than 100 days in a combat operation or those who were victims of a physical or sexual assault in the military.

Read more at TheHill.com.

Americans face several barriers to accessing mental health care, whether it be cost, time or availability of providers. However, people of color face even more deterrents, further isolated by stigmas in their communities and the lack of cultural competency among providers — and Asian Americans are no exception.

Compared to those of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, Asian Americans are least likely to receive mental health treatment. In fact, only 21% of Asian adults with a mental illness received care in 2020, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. While concerning, this data point isn’t surprising given the cultural divides between western and eastern societies, says Adora Du, founder of FAUNA Mental Health, a non-profit dedicated to providing written resources on mental health support for Asian and BIPOC communities.

Du is Chinese-American, and has sought mental health help in the past. With a background in mental health research and clinical work, she knows firsthand how the system fails Americans like her.

While Asian and Asian Americans may feel pressure to conform to certain behaviors and customs, that contrasts with the U.S. and other western countries in their approach to mental health. People are more expected to behave according to personal preferences — the individual comes first, not their community. Du points out that both individualism and collectivism can be problematic, with either extreme isolating the individual.

Providers do not often understand this key difference and look at mental health care from a solely western lens. A therapist may ask an Asian-American patient to draw boundaries with their parents or focus more on taking care of themselves rather than the people around them. Du notes that while this may be effective advice for some, it may feel out of touch, if not impossible for others.

Read more at BenefitNews.com.

For many scientists, communicating their research involves turning data into stories. However, for Laura Vargas, PhD, MSW, MPA, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, her data already are stories.

Vargas’ laboratory is mostly in the field, where she interviews Latin American immigrants fleeing violence and poverty about traumatic experiences in their home countries and along their migratory routes to the United States. The data in these stories help Vargas to understand how individual characteristics – such as gender, age, sexuality, education and country of origin – affect trauma exposures and their impacts. Vargas brings her training as a scientist and practice as a social worker to her research. The ultimate goal is to use knowledge of mental health vulnerabilities among Latin American immigrants in the United States to improve the development and delivery of appropriate treatment, for the right person, at the right time.

South American migrants must pass through a treacherous 60-mile stretch of dense rainforest, steep mountains and vast swamps called the Darién Gap, a roadless, lawless pass separating Colombia in South America from Panama in Central America. It’s strewn with dead bodies, a harbinger of the many dangers that lurk, both from nature and from armed guerrillas. The dangers don’t stop for those who survive the Darién Gap or are just beginning for those who set out from Central America.

Vargas’ current research focuses on understanding individual characteristics that impact mental health challenges among Latin American immigrants. But in the future, she aims to use this knowledge to identify which points of intervention matter the most and for whom. She intends to help change systems upstream to prevent mental health problems downstream.

She explained that to effectively reduce health disparities, the focus must be on systemic change rather than the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” emphasis on individual initiative. “This is essential because you can row and row and row and row and never get upstream if you were way downstream,” she said.

Read more at News.CUAnschutz.edu.

A 2007 study by Jennifer Abe, a psychology professor at Loyola Marymount University, found that less than 9% of Asian Americans sought any type of mental health services, compared with nearly 18% of the general population nationwide. A survey released in October by the National Alliance on Mental Illness found that 77% of people of color with mood disorders reported struggling to talk about their condition, compared with 69% of White people.

Yet access to mental health care has never been more important. According to the Household Pulse Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020 and 2021, about 30% to 40% of adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression during the pandemic, up from 10% in 2019. For Asian Americans, the rise in anti-Asian hate has taken an added toll on mental well-being, increasing their need for mental health support.

But many aren’t getting it. According to experts familiar with the Asian American experience, stigma, pressure to live up to the myth of Asian American success, and culturally inappropriate services prevent people from getting the mental health care they need. To address this problem, experts recommend creating an approach to mental health care that is more culturally sensitive to the needs and beliefs of Asian Americans; uses non-stigmatized language, such as “behavioral health professional” instead of “psychotherapist”; provides individually tailored treatment; and increases availability of bilingual therapists.

Nancy Liu, associate clinical professor at the University of California, said it’s important to address both the commonalities among Asian Americans and to tailor therapy to an individual’s specific stressors and socioeconomic and cultural background. Training more therapists on how to deliver culturally appropriate therapy would help, she added.

DJ Ida, executive director of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association, said the need for culturally aware, bilingual mental health professionals is greater now than ever before.

To get more Asian Americans to seek care, providers need to recognize that some cultures don’t see mental and physical health as separate. She said they also need to think beyond medication and talk therapy, which can sometimes re-traumatize people. Other more culturally appropriate avenues for addressing mental health difficulties could include gardening or exercising, for example.

Read more at YesMagazine.org.

Researchers have long pointed to the importance of incorporating cultural practices into behavioral health care for Native Americans, but there is an ongoing struggle to ensure those services are accessible and affordable.

In past years, federal and state legislation aimed at increasing insurance coverage of mental health treatment has expanded the availability of services for many. But access to culturally responsive care and traditional healing remains limited.

In the larger landscape of mental and behavioral health care, Indigenous communities face significant disparities.

Native Americans report experiencing serious psychological distress 2.5 times more than the general population, federal data show. And although overall suicide rates are similar to those of white people, there are key differences among certain age groups — with suicides among Native Americans ages 15 to 19 more than double that of white youth.

Indigenous people also are more likely to suffer from substance use disorders. A major factor in all of this is multigenerational trauma stemming from a long legacy of colonization, genocide and oppression, as well as forced relocation from traditional lands, sterilization and assimilation.

“We need to recognize that we’re not just talking about history. We are talking about an ongoing legacy and ongoing problems,” said Hilary Weaver, a professor emeritus at the University at Buffalo who studies Indigenous identity and well-being.

Weaver, who’s a social worker and a member of the Lakota tribe, said traditional healers play a significant role in mending these lasting wounds.

“Those traditional ways have been there long before somebody came in with a psychology degree or a social work degree or a nursing degree,” she said. “And there’s a lot of value in those tribal traditions.”

Read more at SourceNM.com.