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Mikayla Kim, a senior at Helix Charter High School in La Mesa, presented her first film, Overcast, on October 31, 2021, at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. The short film explores the connection between growing up Asian American with immigrant parents, and how that upbringing influences young Asian Americans’ relationships with mental health.

Her nine-minute short features the voices of other Asian American young people discussing the ways that their upbringing influenced their relationships with mental health.

“I chose to focus on mental health, mostly because of how triggering this topic is for me. That made it clear to me how stigmatized mental health is within immigrant households since I’m still very uncomfortable speaking up about my past, with my family,” she says. “I wanted to explore whether others in the Asian community felt the same way, and went on to create an emotional outlet and a safe space for individuals to share their struggles after years of possibly suffering in silence.”

Read more at SanDiegoUnionTribune.com.

The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma has reached a $75 million opioid settlement with three of the nation’s largest drug distributors, the first deal of its kind with a tribal government in the country.

AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and McKesson shipped vast quantities of highly addictive pain pills over the past 20 years, triggering an avalanche of lawsuits.

In a statement, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said the opioid crisis had disproportionately affected people in his community.

“This settlement will enable us to increase our investments in mental health treatment facilities and other programs to help our people recover,” Hoskin said.

The Cherokee Nation is a sovereign government with more than 390,000 citizens. Officials described this as the largest settlement in their history.

“This settlement was negotiated in connection with ongoing negotiations toward a broad resolution of opioid-related claims brought by Native American tribes,” the firms said in a release sent to NPR.

Read more at NPR.org.

Speaking out about mental illness or seeking help was seen as a taboo within Black culture for years, but the topic has seen a turning point recently, according to a sociologist in Fayetteville.

According to Fayetteville State University sociology professor Stacye Blount, the Black community has not embraced taking care of mental health as they have taken care of their physical health.

“Some scholars have said that because we have to live with the stigma of our skin tone, self-identification as Black or African-American … that it’s possible, historically, that Black people have tried to minimize stigma,” she said. “Therefore, mental health is perceived as a stigma for some sectors of society. It’s just one thing that we have not embraced as much.”

Blount said she can’t pinpoint when the shift in Black culture began to place more emphasis on mental health care, but there have been a variety of influences.

“As resources have become more available and people have become more knowledgeable about mental health and services associated with mental health, individuals in the African-American community have embraced a more accepting posture towards that,” she said.

She said another factor for the shift can be attributed to the increase of Black mental health professionals.

“People seem to be more comfortable with people that look like them or self-identify in the same manner that they may self-identify,” she said.

Read more FayObserver.com.

Young adults who experience discrimination about their bodies, race, age, or sex have a greater risk of dealing with mental health problems than those who do not, a new study has found.

Encountering discrimination — especially racism — has long been associated with negative effects on overall well-being, such as higher levels of stress, poor cognitive function, anxiety, depression, and substance use, previous studies have found.

Those who faced discrimination frequently — at least a few times per month —were around 25% more likely to be diagnosed with a mental disorder and twice as likely to develop severe psychological distress than people who didn’t experience discrimination or did less often, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Having dealt with any degree of discrimination was linked with a 26% higher risk for having poor overall health, according to the participants’ responses. Often experiencing discrimination wasn’t strongly associated with binge drinking but was linked with more use of drugs such as amphetamines, marijuana, tranquilizers, barbiturates, or cocaine in the last year without a doctor’s prescription.

Read more at CNN.com.

A growing body of research into PTSD and service animals paved the way for President Joe Biden to sign into law the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers (PAWS) for Veterans Therapy Act. The legislation, enacted in August, requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to open its service dog referral program to veterans with PTSD and to launch a five-year pilot program in which veterans with PTSD help train service dogs for other veterans.

Military sexual trauma, combat violence, and brain injuries are among the experiences that put service personnel at greater risk for developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. The symptoms include flashbacks to the traumatic event, severe anxiety, nightmares, and hyper-vigilance. Psychologists note that such symptoms are actually a normal reaction to experiencing or witnessing such violence. A diagnosis of PTSD happens when the symptoms get worse or remain for months or years.

Research from Maggie O’Haire, an associate professor of Human-Animal Interaction at Purdue University, suggests while service dogs aren’t necessarily a cure for PTSD, they do ease its symptoms. Her published studies include one showing veterans partnered with these dogs experience less anger and anxiety and get better sleep than those without. Another one suggests service dogs improve cortisol levels in traumatized veterans.

A congressionally-mandated VA study, published earlier this year on the impact of service dogs on veterans with PTSD suggests those who partnered with these animals have less suicidal ideation and more symptom improvement than those without them.

Until now, the federal dog referral program – which relies on non-profit service dog organizations to pay for these dogs and to provide them to veterans for free – required that the veteran have a physical mobility issue, such as a lost limb, paralysis, or blindness, in order to participate.

Read more at NPR.org.

Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, and Raleigh are starting to see Afghan refugees, who were displaced from their home country in August, resettle in North Carolina. As they arrive, other Afghan residents already in this state have lessons in some of the mental health challenges that often accompany refugees fleeing turmoil who are suddenly thrust into a new life in a foreign place.

Since the Taliban overthrew the Afghan government on Aug. 15 and U.S troops withdrew from the country 15 days later, many who had lived in the country and fled for safety reasons are being dispersed around the globe.

According to a 2019 article from the Human Rights Watch, about half of the Afghan population experiences post-traumatic stress, anxiety, or depression.

Khadija Bahari, an Afghan woman from the Hazara ethnic group who moved to this country in 2005 and now lives in Virginia, often speaks about seeking equality for women in Afghanistan. In a recent telephone interview, Bahari said that it has been hard to watch and read the news about the Taliban takeover of the government.

Some people do not seek professional help to soothe their anxiety and mental stress. Bahari, who understands some of the challenges and disparities that her ethnic group faces in Afghanistan, has found support among other Hazara women. In recent months, they got together and lamented that Hazara Afghans do not seem to be able to leave the country as easily as some of the other ethnic groups.

Although Bahari has a support system of her own, she questions whether the most recent arrivals from Afghanistan will have sufficient resources.

“I don’t think there are very many sources,” Bahari said. “Lots of people, maybe 90 percent of these people cannot speak English. They are coming from rural Afghanistan with those mentalities, and it’s all shocking, even the good things in the U.S. are shocking for them. They have to go through adjusting to a new culture.”

Read more at NorthCarolinaHealthNews.org.