Mental Health is a growing public health concern in the United States. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, during any given year, nearly 25% of the population has a diagnosable disorder, two-thirds of which goes untreated. According to a new study, an estimated 8.3 million adults in the U.S. (close to 3.5%) suffer from serious psychological distress. What’s worse, many are unable to get the help they need to either treat there conditions or even get a diagnosis. Latinos reported the highest stress across four major sources of stress including money, employment, family responsibilities and health concerns, a recent survey reported. In order to reduce health disparities, it is critical to address inequities in programs, practices, and ...
Kaiser Permanente wants to empower parents to talk to their kids about mental health. Finding the right ways to talk to your children about mental health is important because as many as 13% of children ages 8 to 15 experience a severe mental disorder at some point while growing up. In fact, many parents are unaware of the warning signs in kids or teens who are dealing with mental health issues. A few signs to look for include substance abuse, social isolation, behavior changes and more. Parents wanting to learn more about mental health like how to assess their child's mental health, and or how to talk to their child in a non-judgmental way about mental health can click here for more information on mental health. These resources are also in Spanish for Latino parents to talk ...
How can a little pinwheel fan help kids with emotional balance and mental clarity? Coming together to support mental health awareness month, Sixpence Program and the Lied Scottsbluff Public Library are supporting children's mental health with toys like foam building blocks, mental health books, and pinwheels. These toys can help provide continued learning for kids with mental health issues, helping them in calm-down techniques, like the pinwheels which help kids learn a deep breathing technique. Kids can "smell" the flower when they put the pinwheel close to their face, and then blow out stress or exhale onto the pinwheel and see the pinwheel move into action. “As adults, we can teach children how to respond when they are upset,” Tiffany Fuller, the Sixpence Program ...
Nearly 1 in 5 Latinos suffers a mental health problem. But Latinos are less likely than other groups to seek out treatment for mental health conditions. They fear being stigmatized. They lack of health insurance. They face cultural barriers. Or they simply a fail to recognize symptoms. That’s why we at Salud America! are spotlighting heroes who are improving mental health for Latino families!
Irán Barrera: Helping Latinos Answer Mental Health Questions
Dr. Irán Barrera believes there is a difference between mainstream mental health and Latino mental health. Latinos don't use words like anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress. This means health professionals need training to address Latinos' mental health needs. That's why Barrera applied for and received ...
For many Latinos, discussing mental health issues still retains a strong and often negative stigma. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) emphasizes that mental illness is no different for Latinos than for any other racial or ethnic group. Common mental health disorders among Latinos are generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcoholism. For many Latinos, a lack of access to mental health care resources means conditions go either untreated or undiagnosed. Language barriers also prevent many from expressing their symptoms and/or concerns to their doctors. In the city of Fresno, Calif., one group is looking to help remove some of these barriers. The Consejo Project, part of the Department of Social Work Education at ...
For many Latinos, discussing mental health issues still retains a strong, negative stigma. Often times, a lack of access to mental health care resources means conditions go either untreated or undiagnosed. Language barriers also prevent many from expressing their symptoms and/or concerns to their doctors. In the city of Fresno, Calif. (48.54% Latino population), one group is looking to help remove some of these barriers. The Consejo Project, part of the Department of Social Work Education at California State University, Fresno (Fresno State), trains social work students to serve Spanish-speaking children, teenagers, and youths and examine and work through the systemic barriers that limit the access of Latinos to mental and substance abuse services in the San Joaquin Valley. “We ...
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University recently identified a “culturally sensitive” set of tools that can be applied by pediatricians to help them screen Latino patients for mental health symptoms. Anxiety, depression, and aggression are some of the mental health issues that plague many Latinos and often go undiagnosed and untreated. The tools, which are freely available, and take less than 10 minutes to use are in Spanish and can help assess a wide range of emotional and behavioral problems among Latino kids. The investigators from Johns Hopkins encourage primary care pediatricians to consider utilizing four mental health screening tools: he Pediatric Symptom Checklist (PSC)-17-question version, the PSC-35-question version, the pictorial PSC-35, and the Strengths and ...
Mental health is one of the most important issue in all of healthcare. Anxiety and depression are just two of the more common mental health issues that affect millions of people. In recent years, Latino mental health has become an issue focused on my health agencies across the country. A new study has found that certain policies may be exacerbating Latino mental health concerns American Latinos living in states with more “exclusionary” immigration policies report higher rates of “psychological distress” than those living in states with more liberal immigration laws. “Obviously, not all immigrants are Latinos, nor are all Latinos immigrants,” said a research team led by Mark Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University in the journal Social Science and Medicine. In order to ...
According to a 2015 report published by the William T. Grant Foundation, 1 in 3 Latino kids live in poverty vs. 1 in 7 non-Latino white kids and 1 in 7 Asian children. Such differences are believed to be a central issue which compounds disparities in mental health. The report goes on to list 4 primary issues at the root of inequality in mental health including: Pervasive differences in family Socio-Econoimic Status;
Adverse childhood experiences;
Family structure; and
Neighborhood-level Factors Read more about mental health and Latino ...
