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American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and adolescents are a unique and diverse population with multiple health inequities, and pediatricians are in a special position to improve their health and well-being with culturally sensitive care. Compared with the general U.S. population, AI/AN children and adolescents have higher levels of obesity and obesity-related cardiovascular issues, mental health concerns, suicide, toxic stress, substance use disorder, injury and violence, exposure to environmental hazards, and historical trauma.

A new American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement examines health inequities and barriers to treatment for this population, with recommendations for care and opportunities for advocacy. When implementing the strategies in the policy, pediatricians are encouraged to seek programs and interventions that incorporate AI/AN culture, tradition, and practices.

Read more at AAPPublications.org.

Why do Black men avoid help? Seeking mental health treatment doesn’t often happen because of the stigma attached to the medical industry. The consequences are negative attitudes or mistrust toward providers, cultural lack of information, unwillingness to acknowledge feelings of inadequacy, and lack of health insurance. Communities of color experience socioeconomic disparities such as educational, social, and economic resources.

Why don’t men talk about their feelings? Vulnerability is a taboo word that the Black culture has long associated with being weak or too sensitive. During childhood, men are taught not to show emotions. Over time, a pent-up and boxed-in mentality creates an individual who can’t properly articulate feelings.

For men to get help, they must be willing to have those hard conversations. Thankfully, for African American men, mental health is no longer a taboo topic. Ali Gates, Evans Anyanwu, Johnson Ejezie, and Ezekiel Awoyemi have created a conversation starter with a mental health awareness app called “U Good?” that will enable people to connect with their contacts without making a call. Co-founder Evans stated that “communication is such that people want to say a lot without saying a lot.” With this app, it’s easy to stay in touch with your network of friends, all while asking that simple question, “U good?”

Read more at RollingOut.com.

In recent weeks, there’s been a spike in racist violence against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across the U.S., specifically targeting elders. And though initially underreported in mainstream media, the anti-Asian violence and harassment has started getting the attention it deserves.

Yet the impact of the COVID-19 virus itself on AAPI communities is getting far less attention, especially when compared with other racial and ethnic groups. That’s in part because the data is still so incomplete. Some data shows that the AAPI population has comparable COVID rates to the white population, while others show the opposite — that AAPI communities are among the hardest hit by the virus. Even within the AAPI population, some subgroups — like Filipino Americans — are being more heavily impacted than others.

“I think even pre-COVID, mental health is not necessarily a conversation that comes up,” Leezel Tanglao, multimedia journalist and project director of the Tayo Help Desk, says. “It’s often just tightly kept within the community, because again, you don’t want to let people know there might be something wrong with you. I think COVID has definitely kicked open the door to these conversations that, to be honest, needed to happen a long time ago. I think it’s only now that we’ve been able to talk more openly about what is happening in our community, how do we deal with it, and how do we talk more openly and address these issues that COVID has surfaced.”

Read more at WNYCStudios.com.

While civilians and troops have similar behavioral health concerns across racial, ethnic, gender and sexual-orientation groups, a recent RAND study found that white service members are more likely to have behavioral health troubles than their non-white counterparts, the opposite of what civilian research shows.

“Whereas the U.S. military has recognized the behavioral health needs of service members in general, the specific needs of racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority groups are not well understood,” according to the report.

What they found is that while minority groups across military and civilian communities have similar challenges when it comes to mental health concerns, researchers found that the military has some “reverse disparities,” as the authors termed them. The study found that among racial and ethnic minorities, non-white troops are less likely to have reported behavioral health concerns, though non-Hispanic Black and Asian troops are more likely to have attempted suicide than white troops.

“Regarding gender, women are more likely than men to suffer from depression and PTSD,” the authors wrote. “They are also more likely to experience suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, but men are more likely to die by suicide. Men, however, are more likely to abuse alcohol and use tobacco products, including cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.”

Gay, lesbian and bisexual troops showed the greatest number of stressors when compared to their straight counterparts, the report found, largely because of the way societal pressures that come along with differences in sexuality.

The study recommends that DoD focus more attention on the issue of suicide attempts in non-white, as well as the disproportionate number of women and LGB troops suffering from behavioral health issues.

Read more at MilitaryTimes.com.

The number of hate crimes with Asian-American victims reported to the New York Police Department jumped to 28 in 2020, from just three the previous year, though activists and police officials say many additional incidents were not classified as hate crimes or went unreported.

Asian-Americans are grappling with the anxiety, fear and anger brought on by the attacks, which activists and elected officials say were fueled early in the pandemic.

These attacks have lasting effects, said Kellina Craig-Henderson, who works for the National Science Foundation and has studied the psychological impact of hate crimes. She said that people targeted because of their race and ethnicity can suffer ailments like post-traumatic stress disorder, often more acutely than victims of other crimes.

She added that hate crimes reverberate through communities and can further marginalize them.

Yen Yen Pong, 37, bought pepper spray after a maskless stranger accosted her last April in Queens, yelling racist remarks about the virus. After Ms. Pong tried to take a photograph of him, he snatched her cellphone and shattered it on the pavement. Ms. Pong, who works at an asset management company, said she thought Asian-American women were particularly at risk, an observation supported by Stop AAPI Hate data showing that Asian-American women in New York were accosted three times as often as men.

Several Asian-Americans who were victims of attacks in New York last year and reported them to the police said the scars were lasting.

Read more at NYTimes.com.

A program out of Meals on Wheels Central Texas has successfully moved the needle on social isolation and the mental and behavioral health consequences that particular social determinants of health can have, data reported in JAMA Psychiatry showed. The study, conducted by researchers from the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas Austin, showed that laypeople can address loneliness as a social determinant of health through targeted, empathetic phone calls to high-risk individuals.

Social isolation has long been a pressing social determinant of health, naturally impacting mental and behavioral health and also showing signs of affecting physical health, too, the researchers said.

“Loneliness has been indicated as a risk factor for overall mortality and conditions from stroke to heart disease,” the team wrote. “It is associated with depression and anxiety, even if the direction and degree of causality is unclear.” And at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic that connection became clearer. The virus outbreak pushed Americans across the country, but especially those with chronic illness or other risk factors, to shelter in place and avoid social gatherings. This likely stressed social isolation, the team said.

The 16-person call team ranged in age from 17 to 23 and were trained specifically in empathetic calling/conversation techniques. The researchers defined empathy as “prioritizing listening and eliciting conversation from the participant on the topics of their choice.”

Overall, the intervention proved successful, the team said.

Read more at PatientEngagementHIT.com.