Disparities in Mental Health Care Utilization and Perceived Need Among Asian Americans: 2012–2016

Abstract

The objective was to examine mental health treatment access disparities between Asians and whites in the United States as well as the role of perceived and objective need and barriers to treatment in these disparities.

Undiagnosed depression, persistent depressive symptoms and seeking mental health care: analysis of immigrant and non-immigrant participants of the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging

“…Only around 40% of Canadians with mental health disorders seek mental health care (Vasiliadis et al ., 2007). In particular, immigrants seem to underutilise mental health services (Chen and Kazanjian, 2005; Fenta et al , 2006; Lai and Surood, 2010; Bauldry and Szaflarski, 2017; Jimenez et al ., 2017; Yang et al ., 2020), despite the effect of migration on their mental health well-being (Tang et al , 2007; Kuo et al ., 2008; Jafari et al , 2010; Islam et al , 2014; George et al ., 2015; Guruge et al , 2015 b ). Immigrants differ from non-immigrants in their behaviour towards healthcare seeking in general [predisposing (e.g.…”

COVID Racism against East Asian Community beyond Post-COVID 19

“…East Asian communities are already experiencing inadequate access to health and social service. Their mental health utilization is marked as the lowest compared to their counterparts in the U.S. Yang et al (2019) also point out that Asian's low mental health utilization comes from a lack of culturally sensitive services and a lack of information on finding these services. Considering all these research findings and their existing difficulties before the pandemic, it is apparent that the post COVID-19 pandemic phase will leave the East Asian community with a more challenging agenda on top of their existing ones.…”

“…Those bilingual professionals acknowledge that East Asian communities have insufficient access to needed health and social services, and other appropriate benefits, due to cultural and linguistic differences (Weng, 2014). For Asians, mental health service utilization and social security benefits are far below than their peers (Yang et al, 2019). COVID-19 racism and violent acts against East Asians will only create an additional burden on top of their existing challenges, such as inadequate access to health and social services due to their cultural and linguistic barriers.…”

Expanding Bilingual Social Workers for the East Asian Older Adults beyond the “COVID-19 Racism”

“…(Na et al, 2016;Yoo et al, 2015). Their mental health service utilization is the lowest out of all older adults' groups due to a lack of culturally and linguistically sensitive services (Yang et al, 2019). The Asian immigrant population has the highest language barrier, with thirty-five percent speaking English "less than very well" (United States Census Bureau, 2019).…”