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People who live in communities with high levels of racial prejudice have a higher rate of heart disease and mental health problems, as well as deaths in general, according to research by the U.S. Psychological Association (APA).

The studies, published Monday in Health Psychology, were led by Eli Michaels of the University of California, Berkeley, “to measure the racial climate in which people live, work, play and pray.”

“These investigations revealed that living in an area with high levels of racial prejudice can be detrimental to health and widen health inequalities,” Michaels said.

The researchers used a variety of sources to measure racial bias at the community level, including tens of millions of data points from large-scale surveys, Internet searches, and social media.

For example, analysis in Google Trends focused on the number of times user searches used racial slurs. Four studies looked at data from Twitter messages that included negative expressions of “people of color.”

These and other studies examined how different indicators of the level of racial bias in an area correlate with the health data of individuals who live there, including mortality rates, birth-related problems, cardiovascular disease, mental health, and general health.

All studies have found a link between levels of racial bias in societies and negative health outcomes for people of color who live in those areas.

Read more at AmicoHoops.net.

During a West Point Pride Month ceremony in 2021, one decade after the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT), Cadet Frankie Rivera spoke about the enduring stigma encountered by LGBTQ+ service members. He said that, to this day, he knew of friends being told they “aren’t masculine enough to serve” and others who have been “denied promotions and positions” because of their sexuality.

A new Center for American Progress analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Federal Reserve Board finds that the roughly 79,000 LGBT individuals currently serving in the armed forces — and an estimated 1 million LGBT veterans — face higher levels of economic insecurity, housing instability, and mental health concerns than their non-LGBT counterparts. To help eliminate barriers for LGBTQ+ service members and veterans, the U.S. Senate must pass the Equality Act in order to codify protections for LGBTQ+ individuals in housing, employment, and public spaces.

For current LGBTQ+ service members, significant cultural barriers persist, and those serving regularly experience mistreatment and discrimination at the hands of their superiors and fellow service members, who are more likely than the general population to hold anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. LGBT service members are more likely to experience sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual assault than their non-LGBT counterparts, and stigma is such that 59 percent of LGBT service members are not openly gay in their workplace.

LGBTQ+ service members face large-scale barriers to economic stability. Active-duty service members face discrimination in rising through the ranks, and many still feel that they are overlooked for positions because of their LGBTQ status; LGB service members are also more likely than non-LGB members to report leaving the military due to lack of promotions. In addition, the recently overturned ban of same-sex couples on military bases indicates that fewer LGBTQ+ service members live on bases; this significantly affects service members’ access to food and goods, which are sold at reduced rates on base, as well as eligibility for benefits assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which, because of eligibility standards, is easier for those living on base to access.

Read more at AmericanProgress.org.

As a Bhutanese refugee coming of age in Pittsburgh in the 2010s, I often heard of death. Death that happened to people — self-inflicted. I found myself on the periphery of the mental health crisis that seemed to have engulfed our community, though it was rarely talked about. Whispers of death everywhere.

I remember hearing stories from my parents about the man who hanged himself in his three-bedroom apartment or about the funeral my mother attended for her co-worker’s spouse who had taken his life. And it was often his life. It seemed to me that they were almost always men. Most importantly, it seemed like this is just how things were, a matter of fact.

It also seemed like a distant problem. I wasn’t particularly close to any of the victims. I was a teenager. The funerals were for people who were in their 30s or 40s. To me, 40 seemed like centuries away. I paid no mind to it; my job was to be a student.

Until, one day, it touched a little too close to home.

On what seemed like a regular fall day, near our apartment complex in Baldwin Borough, a body was found hanging from a tree. My dad told us early in the morning. He told me first, and then he told my older brother who had been friends with the young man since we had become neighbors some five years before. They went to school together, they ate together, they traveled all over the city together. My experience was a passing one. I knew him through my brother. But I still knew him. And now he was dead.

His death was part of a wave of tragedies in Bhutanese refugee communities that cut across class and age lines, most acutely affecting men.

Read more at PublicSource.org.

The difficulties rural-dwelling Native Hawaiian kūpuna (elders) face when seeking healthcare is the focus of a new study conducted by the Thompson School of Social Work & Public Health at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

“Our research underlined the appreciation kūpuna felt for providers who took the time to get to know them and respected Hawaiian cultural practices, including traditional healing practices, like lāʻau lapaʻau (Hawaiian herbal medicine) and lomilomi (massage),” said public health PhD student Keilyn Leinaʻala Kawakami, who spearheaded the study.

Kawakami worked in collaboration with Hā Kūpuna, the National Resource Center for Native Hawaiian Elders, funded by the U.S. Administration on Aging, Department of Health and Human Services, and non-profit ALU LIKE, Inc. to conduct this five-year study.

“The older adults that have been interviewed for this project appreciated being asked to tell their stories,” said Leslie Tanoue, director of Kumu Kahi: Elder Services Department at ALU LIKE, Inc. “They also pointed out needs for additional medical, health and eldercare services in Hawaiian communities on the neighbor islands.”

There were several other key findings from the study. First, most participants had experienced serious chronic diseases that required them to interact with specialists whom they generally had limited access to. Second, the kūpuna exemplified resilience despite limited access to specialty and mental health services in rural communities. Third, the kūpuna would like to see more integration of traditional Hawaiian health care practices and Western practices.

Read more at Hawaii.edu.

Last year, nearly half of LGBTQ+ youth seriously considered suicide, including more than half of trans youth, according to new data from The Trevor Project.

These figures reveal a deadly, mental-health crisis among high school and college-age LGTBQ+ youth of all races, which has been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic and by recent, political attacks on LGTBQ+ students by state legislators across the nation.

The Trevor Project data shows how things have gone from bad to worse for LGBTQ+ youth in the past two years. In 2019, 40 percent of LGTBQ+ seriously considered suicide; in 2021, the rate hit 45 percent.

And it’s even scarier among students of color. About one in five Black LGBTQ+ students attempted suicide last year, as did a slightly higher rate of Indigenous LGBTQ+ students.

Meanwhile, mental health care is scarce. Nearly half of LGBTQ+ youth — and more than half of Latino LGBTQ+ students — told the Trevor Project that they wanted counseling and didn’t get it.

Making matters worse for LGBTQ students, nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been filed this year in state legislatures, most of them targeting trans people, according to an NBC News analysis.

Many of these bills have been signed into laws that ban trans women and girls from participating in high school sports, prohibit trans students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity, and restrict LGBTQ-positive school curriculum.

Read more at NEA.org.

The availability of Spanish-language mental health services is shrinking even as the U.S. Latino population continues to grow, according to a recent study.

Why it matters: Spanish is the second-most spoken language in the U.S., and the number of Latinos who speak Spanish at home has grown from 24.6 million in 2000 to 39.1 million in 2019, according to the Pew Research Center.

By the numbers: Between 2014 and 2019, the proportion of facilities offering mental health treatment in Spanish declined by nearly 18%, according to a study published last week in the journal Psychiatric Services.

• That was a loss of 1,163 Spanish-speaking mental health facilities.
• Overall, 44 states saw a decline in the availability of services in Spanish, despite growth in Hispanic populations across all states.
• The national Hispanic population increased by 4.5%, or 5.2 million people, during the same period.
• The study examined data from the National Mental Health Services Survey conducted in 2014 and 2019.

The big picture: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports over 40% of Latino adults reported symptoms of depression during the pandemic, compared to 25% of white non-Hispanics.

• But only about 33% of Hispanics with a mental health disorder generally get treatment, compared to 45% of non-Hispanics, according to a 2018 Department of Health and Human Services report.
• And just 7% of licensed psychologists in the U.S. identify as Latino, according to the American Psychological Association, while even fewer, 5.5% of therapists, can provide services in Spanish.

What they’re saying: “Disparities in behavioral health risk factors in the past decade have also grown and closely parallel the overall growth in the Hispanic population,” the authors wrote.

Read more at Axios.com.