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In recent years, celebrities have brought mental health to the forefront of the conversation on health. Artists and athletes are laying the groundwork for families to take charge of their mental health.

According to the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to report emotional distress and hopelessness. African Americans living in poverty are twice as likely to report serious psychological distress.

Access to mental health services is one of the biggest challenges in the African American community.

“There’s still a fairly large number of African Americans who don’t feel they get treated the same way, particularly in the mental health arena,” said psychiatrist Dr. Willis Holloway.

Historically skeptical of health care, many African Americans are acutely aware of discrimination in the medical field. It’s a turnoff and often one of the reasons they don’t seek help.

But when it comes to acceptance of mental health treatment and early intervention for children, there is momentum.

“Those kids are still in the development stages. Their brains are still being shaped and molded,” Dr. Holloway said. “You have an opportunity to put some hard wiring in place that will carry that kid forward, hopefully in a positive way.”

Read more at KSN.com.

For years, Hillside has provided residential and outpatient mental health treatment for kids and teens on their Atlanta campus, nestled in a forested neighborhood near Piedmont Park. Since the pandemic, the young patients coming to Hillside have been arriving more ill. Many have tried to harm themselves. The symptoms are more intense and the waitlist for care is long.

“These kiddos are desperate,” says Dr. Adam Silberman, Hillside’s medical director. “They’ve been on God knows how many medication regimens and through different providers, and they’re sicker than ever before, and we try to put the pieces together as much as we can in the time we’re allotted, based on insurance, which doesn’t provide a lot.”

The need for mental health services is exploding in Georgia, but there are nowhere near enough providers. In fact, Georgia ranks last in the country for access to mental health care. A bill to overhaul the mental health system in Georgia is wading through the legislature. Improving mental healthcare will require drawing more psychiatrists, therapists, and nurses — and keeping them in the field.

Kimberly Young, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who manages Hillside’s nursing department and residential treatment, says reform is overdue.

“The world outside of here is also very dark, and people are struggling and then we come here every day, and so it’s definitely taking a toll on our staff,” Young says. “It’s taken a toll on all of us, and our passion continues to bring us back. But our nursing staff, our residential staff, our therapists, every department has been hit with resignations.”

Read more at Wabe.org.

Newly released data shows Colorado’s veteran suicide rate continuing to outpace that of the U.S. As in previous years, the state’s veteran suicide rate was significantly higher than the national average in 2019, according to a fact sheet published this month by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In 2019, Colorado had a rate of 43.1 suicide deaths per 100,000 veterans.

From 2018 to 2019, the data shows, the national veteran suicide rate declined by 7.2% when accounting for changes in the population’s age and sex. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs calls this drop “unprecedented across the last 20 years.” But Colorado’s suicide rate among veterans held flat from 2018 to 2019. Even with the decline nationally, 6,261 veterans died by suicide in 2019 alone, according to the VA’s September report. That’s an average of more than 17 deaths per day.

For some former service members, the VA’s resources for mental health and substance use fall short of what’s needed — putting more lives at risk.

“If a veteran, or anybody, is having an emotional trauma, breakdown … their life is in danger,” said Ted Engelmann, an Air Force veteran who served in Vietnam, and a freelance embed photographer in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It could be as bad as suicide, let’s put it that way, or the anguish that they’re going through personally is a real difficult situation.”

Engelmann, who has spent years seeking to raise awareness of the challenges faced by fellow veterans, said he recently experienced difficulty scheduling an appointment at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Center. He was told the earliest counseling he could receive was “70 days out.”

Read more at ColoradoNewsline.com.

Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii has awarded 2 grants totaling $100,000 to Adult Friends for Youth and Mental Health America of Hawaii. Both grants aim to improve the health and well-being of Hawaii’s most vulnerable children.

Adult Friends for Youth received $50,000 to support its education and career readiness program. The organization aims to break the generational cycles of violence, incarceration, unemployment, homelessness, and poverty by cultivating coping skills among youth. The grant will enable Adult Friends for Youth to provide redirectional therapy and counseling services to high-risk youth to address their mental health and educational needs. The program will create safer schools and communities while also preparing participants for post-secondary education, enabling them to become economically secure in the future. Over 85% of Adult Friends for Youth’s counseling program participants are of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander descent.

Mental Health America of Hawaii was awarded $50,000 to support its youth resilience and wellness training and education program. The program will provide 1,300 youth and youth-serving adults with evidence-informed suicide prevention and bullying prevention training over 6 months and will enable Mental Health America of Hawaii to increase training for individuals in rural areas of Oahu, Hawaii Island, and Kauai.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the social, emotional, and mental health of Keiki,” said John Yang, MD, president and medical director of Hawaii Permanente Medical Group. “We’re proud to partner with Mental Health America of Hawaii and Adult Friends for Youth to foster emotional resilience in youth so that they can cope with challenges in healthier ways.”

Read more at KaiserPermanente.org.

In November, the Citizens’ Committee for Children released data showing what many clinicians and experts on mental health in the Latino community already knew: Latina mothers in New York City are suffering, and the support provided by the city isn’t cutting it.

Roughly 42% of Latina women with children at home in New York City report symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to the CCC’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey.

“Latina women have always had a higher prevalence of depression in comparison to other women,” said Dr. Rosa Gil, director of Comunilife, a nonprofit focused on mental health and housing services for the Latino community. “I think that challenge has gotten much more critical for Latina women due to the pandemic.”

During the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, Latinxs in New York City were dying at twice the rate of white and Asian New Yorkers, according to data from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. National data from the UCLA Policy & Politics Initiative found that Latina women suffered the largest drop in employment of any group in the U.S. during the pandemic.

It’s a “perfect storm,” said Mary Adams, director of mental health and wellness at University Settlement, which provides family medical services to those living on the Lower East Side. “So many of these women were holding their families together. They were losing jobs and not replacing their income and, in some cases, may not have been eligible for benefits.”

Read more at TheCity.NYC.

The shocking Atlanta mass shooting in March 2021 that resulted in the deaths of six Asian American women brought the nation’s attention to the rise in anti-Asian violence since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. The increase in hate speech, property damage, and brutal attacks, coupled with the negative mental health impact of quarantine isolation, has led to an increase in feelings of anxiety and distress among Asian Americans. With this confluence of stressors, we anticipate more Asian Americans will present for psychiatric care. Given the shortage of psychiatrists with expertise in working with Asian American patients, it seems timely for us to share some insights on both acute and longer-term issues facing Asian Americans.

Asian Americans are an incredibly diverse group, representing more than 20 countries of origin and hundreds of languages and cultures. The needs of immigrants differ from those of American-born Asians. There are wide differences in socioeconomic status, insurance status, educational background, age, and degree of acculturation.

When it comes to treating symptoms that are produced by systemic forces like racism and alienation from mainstream American culture, bearing witness to a patient’s experience of racism is like treating the symptoms without addressing the underlying cause. A truly comprehensive treatment plan for Asian American patients ultimately requires us to address the root cause by participating in advocacy for systemic change outside the consultation room.

Read more at PsychiatricTimes.com.