Mental Health in Asian and Pacific Islander Populations: Challenges, Resources, Community Voices - NAMI California (2023)

FAQs

What are the mental health issues in AAPI community? ›

Asian hate, racism, and mental health

The phenomena of Asian hate, anti-Asian sentiment, hate rhetoric, and blaming Asians for COVID-19 has made AAPI people scapegoats, leading to more feelings of anxiety, depression, and emotional and psychological suffering. “Pandemic isolation provided relative security and safety.

Discussing mental health concerns is considered taboo in many Asian cultures and as a result Asian Americans tend to dismiss, deny or neglect their symptoms.

Asian Americans fear being thought of as weak or “crazy” for having a psychological disorder—perhaps more than any other group. Shame and embarrassment force many to struggle in silence and never seek help. Some Asian Americans have found ways to work around the stigma.

Reasons for mental health stigma in Asian cultures

Asian cultures, for instance, tend to place honour, pride and collectivism in high regard, especially within families. Anomalies such as mental illness can therefore be seen as a sign of weakness and a source of shame for the family.

have identified the five leading mental health problems in the Asia and Pacific region: (i) depression, (ii) anxiety, (iii) post-traumatic stress disorder, (iv) suicidal behavior, and (v) substance-abuse disorder.

When it comes to mental health, culture can play a significant role. Mental health is shaped by our cultural beliefs, values, and norms. Our culture can impact the way we understand and cope with mental illness. It can also affect how we seek help and support.

Ethnicity, race, and religious and family values are a few examples of influences that form the basis of culture. The experience and manifestation of mental illness are influenced by an individual's social and cultural background.

Stigma often comes from lack of understanding or fear. Inaccurate or misleading media representations of mental illness contribute to both those factors.

What do Asians believe about health and illness? ›

In some Asian beliefs, diagnosis of illness is considered supernatural or spiritual, where illness can be brought on by a curse or sorcery or nonobservance of a religious ethic. Illness overall is seen as one's own fate and hospitalization may be seen as a sign of impending death.

Of the major mental illnesses, individuals like you with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are perhaps among the most stigmatized. 3 Even among healthcare professionals, BPD is frequently misunderstood. Stigma surrounding BPD can also lead to misdiagnosis.

People who identify as being two or more races (24.9%) are most likely to report any mental illness within the past year than any other race/ethnic group, followed by American Indian/Alaska Natives (22.7%), white (19%), and black (16.8%).

The results showed that Asian-Americans reported higher levels of social anxiety than white Americans in both interview and written conditions.

Globally, the majority of those who need mental health care worldwide lack access to high-quality mental health services. Stigma, human resource shortages, fragmented service delivery models, and lack of research capacity for implementation and policy change contribute to the current mental health treatment gap.

Of those, the three most common diagnoses are anxiety disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These three conditions make up around 30 percent of all diagnoses of mental illness in America.

Lack of awareness, social stigma, cost, and limited access are some of the most prominent factors standing in the way of people pursuing mental health treatment. Let's take a closer look at how these obstacles impact access to much-needed mental health treatment and resources.

There are many types of mental health challenges. Here is a list of some: anxiety, depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), schizophrenia, and bi-polar disorder.

Some common ones include cognitive behavioral therapy or dialectical behavior therapy.

What are the top 5 mental health issues? ›

1 in 5 US South Asians report experiencing a mood or anxiety disorder in their lifetime. Mental health problems are common for US South Asians, with women reporting higher levels of distress than men.

Religious practices and belief in religion are remarkably strong in most of Asia and this is another source of both caring and treatment for the mentally ill. Many treatment centers focus on prayers for the cure or well being of the ill person and this appears to be beneficial to some.

Examples of cultural barriers preventing effective mental health treatment include: Different understandings of illness or health. Lack of diversity in the mental health workforce. Mistrust or fear of treatment.

Different cultures may place stressful events differently as normative, or something that most people in that culture will experience, such as coming-of-age rituals. Further they will allocate social resources differently, leading to diverse experiences of these stressors.

“Mental health and diversity and inclusion (D&I) are closely connected,” says a Forbes article. “Employees from diverse backgrounds can face lack of representation, micro-aggressions, unconscious bias, and other stressors that impact their mental health and psychological safety at work.”

There are so many factors that have an impact on our mental health, including genetics, family history, childhood experiences — and even big societal issues like violence, discrimination or poverty. And how those factors affect us can change over time.

The harmful effects of stigma

feelings of shame, hopelessness and isolation. reluctance to ask for help or to get treatment. lack of understanding by family, friends or others. fewer opportunities for employment or social interaction.

Poor mental health influences people's relationships with their children, spouses, relatives, friends, and co-workers. Often, poor mental health leads to problems such as social isolation, which disrupts a person's communication and interactions with others.

How does mental illness affect the community? ›

Untreated mental health conditions can result in unnecessary disability, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration, and suicide, and poor quality of life.

For Asian Americans, the leading cause of death is cancer, a factor unique to their racial/ethnic group. For every other racial/ethnic category, heart disease is the leading cause of death. Asian Americans exhibit the highest rates of cancers of the liver, cervix, and stomach.

Asians demonstrated more pain sensitivity than Caucasians, who evidenced more pain sensitivity than African-Americans and Hispanics. The results hold even after controlling for age, sex, SES, and experimenter's ethnicity. Asians also showed higher anticipatory anxiety compared with other ethnic groups.

Depression. Impacting an estimated 300 million people, depression is the most-common mental disorder and generally affects women more often than men.

The multiple consequences of stigma

According to World Health Organization, addiction to illicit drugs is the most stigmatizing condition[3].

Answers: 1. 1 in 4 2. 90% - Time to Change research shows that up to 90% people with mental health problems experience some form of stigma, whether from friends and family, at work, in education or during treatment.

Racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities often suffer from poor mental health outcomes due to multiple factors including inaccessibility of high quality mental health care services, cultural stigma surrounding mental health care, discrimination, and overall lack of awareness about mental health.

Marginalized racial and ethnic communities, such as Black and Hispanic Americans, are more apt to experience severe and debilitating symptoms of major depression and are less apt to receive beneficial treatments, according to a May 2022 report from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, a federation of American health ...

Major depression was most prevalent among Hispanics (10.8%), followed by African Americans (8.9%) and Whites (7.8%). The odds of depressive disorders among older Hispanics were 44% greater than among Whites (OR = 1.44; 95% CI = 1.02, 2.04), representing a significantly greater prevalence of major depression.

What state has the most mental illness? ›

The website got the information from the U.S. Department of Health in a survey of Americans conducted in 2020 and released at the end of 2021. Utah came in at number one in the country for what they termed mental health problems.

Anxiety disorders are considered the most common type of psychiatric disorders in the general population.

The most common are anxiety disorders major depression and bipolar disorder. Below is more information on these disorders and how ACCESS can help. Remember you are not alone, and medical experts are here to support you.

When it came to generalized anxiety disorder, the prevalence was: White Americans: 8.6 percent. African Americans: 4.9 percent. Asian Americans: 2.4 percent.

Native Americans or those who identified as one or more race had the highest rate of moderate to severe anxiety, with 83% of those screened reporting moderate to severe symptoms. Almost half, 46% of those who identified as Native American reported having thoughts of suicide and self-harm.

Some leading causes of death among Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders include: cancer, heart disease, unintentional injuries (accidents), stroke and diabetes. Some other health conditions and risk factors that are prevalent among Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders are hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.

Unaddressed mental health issues can have a negative influence on homelessness, poverty, employment, safety, and the local economy.

The more common mental health diagnoses associated with refugee populations include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), major depression, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, adjustment disorder, and somatization.

What are the top 3 mental health issues? ›

Of those, the three most common diagnoses are anxiety disorders, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These three conditions make up around 30 percent of all diagnoses of mental illness in America.

Depression. Impacting an estimated 300 million people, depression is the most-common mental disorder and generally affects women more often than men.

Pacific habitats and species face threats from proposed deep-sea mining , coastal development, nutrient loading, sedimentation, disease, invasive species, predator outbreaks, overfishing, destructive fishing, marine noise and light pollution, ocean acidification, and climate change with the impacts of higher ...

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for Asian-Americans and Pacific-Islanders, Hispanic-Americans, and Native Americans. Generally, heart disease death rates are lower in these population groups than in Caucasians, with the notable exception of Native Americans under the age of 35.

Eight of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) – Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomon Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI), Cook Islands and Niue – are among the top 15 most at risk of disasters globally.

Isolation can be a risk factor for mental health disorders. Separation from family: Undocumented immigrants can be separated from family and children may be placed in foster homes or other custodial arrangements. Separation from family can be traumatic, especially for children, and can lead to mental health symptoms.

About one out of three asylum seekers and refugees experience high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD)9.

What are the barriers to mental health care refugees? ›

Results. Interviewees described barriers to care inherent in many refugee settings, including financial limitations, shortages of mental health professionals, disparate geographic accessibility, stigma, and limited or absent screening protocols.