News

Kafi Friday, BA, PharmD candidate 2023; and Prashant Sakharkar, PharmD, MPH, shared their poster “Examining Health Disparities and Level of Depression among Sexual Minorities: A Population-based Cross-sectional Study” at the American Pharmacists Association 2022 Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Friday and Sakharkar argued that sexual minorities, or individuals with nonheterosexual sexual orientation, face increasing challenges in achieving health equity due to stigma and discrimination. In a retrospective cohort study, the investigators sought to examine health disparities and level of depression among sexual minorities; compare the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections, smoking, illicit drug use, and alcohol use in use in sexual minorities; and determine predictors of depression among sexual minorities.

The study’s results painted a grim picture for sexual minorities: sexual minorities were 3 times more likely to have gonorrhea and chlamydia infection, 65% more likely to use illicit drugs, 52% more likely to be a smoker, 3 times more likely to experience severe depression, and 2 times more likely to see a mental health clinician.

These findings suggest that depression can be a consequence of health and behavioral disparities. Screening — particularly in females who identify as a sexual minority, smoke, use illicit drugs, are under the age of 45, and are poor — might help in early intervention. Furthermore, future research should examine the association of depression, gender, and sexual minority status.

Read more at PsychiatricTimes.com.

From the 19th century Page Act, which depicted the majority of Chinese women in the US as sex workers, to US military occupations in Asia to pop culture touchstones such as “Full Metal Jacket,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow notes that Asian women in the United States have long been stereotyped as sexual objects or as being submissive — making them especially vulnerable to harassment and violence.

Racism and sexism against Asian American women intensified with the start of the pandemic as the community was scapegoated, said Choimorrow, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. With people referring to Covid-19 as the “China virus” or “kung flu,” it seemed to her that others felt emboldened to act on anti-Asian sentiments.

She recalls how, early on in the pandemic, a man chased her down her neighborhood while she was on a walk with her young daughter. “Go back home with your China virus,” she remembers him yelling. But while the pandemic might have heightened the violence and harassment Asian American women face, the underlying issue has always been there, according to Choimorrow.

“(There are) all sorts of crazy assumptions people make about how Asian women are docile and submissive and don’t stand up for ourselves or think for ourselves,” she said. “I think that makes us very easy targets.”

It’s difficult to disentangle the racialized misogyny that Asian American women in particular face from the racism that has intensified for Asian Americans overall since the pandemic began. But two years later, Asian American women are still reporting incidents of violence and harassment.

Read more at CNN.com.

You’re invited to attend an introduction to data webinar. This opportunity intends to provide technical assistance to National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED) members and minority-serving and under-resourced community-based organizations (CBOs).

After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Understand data terminologies
• Describe the difference between qualitative and quantitative data
• Identify appropriate usage of qualitative and quantitative methods

Speaker:

Marlon Daniel, MHA, MPH

“Elevate CBOs” is an overarching policy-driven initiative at SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity (OBHE) to build capacity, increase the visibility, and highlight the unique role of CBOs serving under-resourced communities in behavioral health.

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

Rates of suicide among American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) veterans have risen sharply in recent years, reports a study in the April issue of Medical Care.

Age-adjusted suicide rates among AI/AN veterans receiving care in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) system increased by nearly 150% over the previous two decades, according to the new research by Nathaniel Mohatt, Ph.D., of Veteran’s Affairs Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center for Suicide Prevention, Aurora, Colo., and colleagues. “Our results suggest a compelling need to review and strengthen suicide prevention efforts for AI/AN veterans,” the researchers write.

The researchers analyzed suicide rates among AI/AN veterans who received health care services provided or paid for by the VHA between 2002 and 2014, with follow-up through 2018. The analysis included veterans classified as single-race (about two-thirds) or multi-race AI/AN, regardless of their place of residence (including tribal or non-tribal communities).

During the period studied, suicide rates among AI/AN veterans more than doubled: from 19.1 to 47.0 per 100,000 person-years, after adjustment for age. Suicide rate was highest in the youngest age group, aged 18 to 39 years: 66.0 per 100,000 person-years. That compared to rates of 36.9 per 100,000 in among AI/AN veterans aged 40 to 59 years and 27.3 per 100,000 in those aged 60 or older.

The youngest age group also had the fastest growth in suicides: from less than 10 deaths between 2004 and 2008 to 52 deaths between 2014 to 2018. The most frequently used lethal means was firearms, accounting for nearly 60% of suicide deaths. Older AI/AN veterans were most likely to die by firearm.

Compared to other Veteran’s Affairs (VA) data, the findings suggest that suicide rates may have increased more rapidly among AI/AN veterans over a similar time period, compared to the general population of veterans: by 146 versus 32%. The rising suicide rate among younger AI/AN veterans is consistent with trends among all veterans, as well as in the general AI/AN population.

Read more at MedicalXpress.com.

Hundreds of thousands of kids have lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID-19 and need support services, mental health experts say, with communities of color particularly devastated.

“Some families lost several people within a span of a few months, and just having one loss after another—that kind of accumulation of more grief—we see higher levels of distress in some of the kiddos we’re seeing,” said Cecilia Segura-Paz, a licensed professional counselor-supervisor at the Children’s Bereavement Center of South Texas.

Because of the pandemic, some children didn’t get to attend a funeral or bereavement services. Others didn’t get a chance to say their last goodbyes. For some youth in underserved communities in South Texas, Segura-Paz said, existing economic hardships, food and housing insecurity, and disruptions to education have deepened and complicated their grief.

Through local partnerships and school-based programming, Segura-Paz said, her center was able to provide more counseling services and peer support groups for children, but high counselor caseloads, provider shortages and conflicts with class time during in-school sessions may have hindered children from getting the help they need.

From January 2020 to November 2021, more than 167,000 children under 18 lost a parent or in-home caregiver to COVID-19, according to a December report titled “Hidden Pain” by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Nemours Children’s Health and the COVID Collaborative. The report found that Black and Hispanic children lost caregivers at more than double the rate of White children, while American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander children lost caregivers at nearly four times the rate of White children.

Read more at PennCapital-Star.com.