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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.

U.S. troops’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan is something Hogai Nassery has been confronted by long after August 2021, when the last plane took off from Kabul, marking the end of the U.S.’ longest war. Starting last year, Nassery has supported Afghan evacuees who have resettled in metro Atlanta through a new nonprofit, the Afghan American Alliance of Georgia (AAAGA). She says the desperation and bloodshed of the evacuation have left emotional scars.

Despite the oftentimes harrowing circumstances that prompt refugees to leave their homelands — and despite the isolation that can come with settling in an unfamiliar place — refugee resettlement hasn’t traditionally made a priority of connecting newcomers with mental health resources. But there are signs that may be starting to change, a welcome development for refugee advocates wary of a potentially life-threatening mental health crisis among the most recent influx from Afghanistan.

“We need trauma counseling for people.… We need that so badly,” Nassery added. “Everybody is struggling.”

Despite the oftentimes harrowing circumstances that prompt refugees to leave their homelands — and despite the isolation that can come with settling in an unfamiliar place — refugee resettlement hasn’t traditionally made a priority of connecting newcomers with mental health resources. But there are signs that may be starting to change, a welcome development for refugee advocates wary of a potentially life-threatening mental health crisis among the most recent influx from Afghanistan.

“If you talk to the clinical providers in the community, they will tell you that mental health is the most urgent burden we have in the community right now,” said Mary Helen O’Connor, deputy director of Georgia State University’s Prevention Research Center (PRC).

Earlier this month, the PRC placed five recent graduates from GSU’s mental health counseling master’s program at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Atlanta, a local resettlement agency. Each of the counselors covers a weekly five-hour shift, where they provide direct care to members of the refugee community in collaboration with IRC caseworkers. The graduates are supervised by a licensed counseling supervisor and counselor educator from GSU.

Read more at AJC.com.

Poverty, language, immigration status, acculturation, and a lack of cultural competency among some mental health providers are just some of the reasons the nonprofit NAMI said Hispanic and Latin Americans aren’t able to get the care they need. Then, there’s stigma and shame surrounding mental illness.

“We don’t want to be labeled as the weak, as the locos or whatnot, and we don’t really reach out, and we don’t really talk about it,” Ivan Sanchez, founder of the Houston Millennials networking group, said.

According to NAMI, 35.1% of Hispanic and Latin American adults with mental illness receive treatment annually, compared to the U.S. average of 46.2%.

“In the Latino community, some of that could be related to the macho culture, that, for example, men don’t look for help for mental illness,” Dr. Cristian Zeni, with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, said.

Read more at ABC13.com.

A majority of LGBTQ students in every state except two said they sought mental health care but were unable to access it, according to a Trevor Project report. The Trevor Project report, which was published Dec. 15, is based on the organization’s 2022 survey of nearly 34,000 LGBTQ people ages 13 to 24. It comes as state legislatures across the country have introduced bills that target LGBTQ students by restricting access to books about LGBTQ topics, limiting participation on team sports, and not offering restrooms that align with their gender identity.

The results point to “systemic barriers in accessing critical mental health care for these young people, who already face a large number of mental health challenges and increased suicide risk,” said Keygan Miller, a public training manager at The Trevor Project.

Schools play a big role in ensuring LGBTQ students have access to supportive spaces and the mental health care they want and need, according to experts. The Trevor Project’s previous research has found that LGBTQ students who have access to LGBTQ-affirming schools report better mental health outcomes and lower rates of attempting suicide, Miller said.

“The reason it is so imperative for schools to be an affirming space is [because] school is the only place that young people have to go,” said Amy Cannava, the appointed chair of the National Association of School Psychologists’ LGBTQ+ committee and a school practitioner in Virginia. “Because they have to be there, it becomes our obligation to act, following what is considered to be empirically validated best practices, which is to be affirming. They legally have a right to be in a place that is safe and supportive and not going to endanger their mental or physical health.”

Read more at EDWeek.org.

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.