Lee et al. assessed opportunities for digital and telephone-based mental health and psychosocial services to reach internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Myanmar during COVID-19. Munthali-Mulemba et al. evaluated the potential for telephone-delivered treatment to overcome structural barriers to mental health services (e.g., lack of providers and distance to health facilities) for adolescents and young adults in Zambia. In their ethnographic case studies of women living in the Sao Paolo exurbs, Bruhn et al. illustrate how pandemic policies like social isolation and social service discontinuation impacted women caregivers’ mental health and overall wellbeing. Two papers herein document elevated prevalence of common mental disorders in marginalized communities during the pandemic.
APIAHF envisions a world where all people share responsibility and take action to ensure healthy and vibrant communities for current and future generations. This report explores the issue, including expert public health analysis and local Spanish-language resources to help serve Latino Americans. They are millions of individuals and thousands of organizations working to advance mental health.
Mental Health Struggles of Racial and Ethnic Minorities
Logically, then, this requires public mental health, and public policy more broadly, to ensure that all prevention strategies explicitly redress social, economic, political and environmental insufficiencies that both increase the risk of mental disorders and inhibit people’s recovery from them. Most recently, these models are being repositioned as broad‐spectrum integrated primary care services for youth mental health that deliver indicated prevention in a variety of innovative ways, and in a variety of contexts, including digitally, in educational settings, workplaces, the community, and clinical spaces311. Nonetheless, as for other minoritized groups, barriers around mistrust of health care providers represent a further obstacle (and target) for improving timely access to preventive mental health care and support. These structural conditions include factors such as income, employment, socioeconomic status, education, food security, housing, social support, discrimination, childhood adversity, as well as the neighbourhood social and physical conditions in which people live, and the ability to access acceptable and affordable health care. Both clinics demonstrate the growing trend of integrated healthcare centers aiming to combine medical, mental health, and social support services. By raising awareness, reducing stigma, and advocating for accessible mental health care, we can make strides toward a more inclusive, supportive mental health system.
Addressing Suicide in Marginalized Communities: Unique Challenges and Culturally Responsive Approaches
GAMH provides a broad range of mental health support designed for different stages and types of need. The Glasgow Association of Mental Health plays a pivotal role in delivering mental health services, advocacy, and education. Established to improve access and reduce stigma, GAMH supports individuals across Scotland, with a strong local presence in Glasgow’s Latino behavioral health challenges conference diverse neighborhoods.
- Marginalized communities are groups that have been pushed to the edges of society socially, economically, or politically.
- For example, a recent systematic review found causal evidence that adolescent mental health (specifically, internalizing problems) improved when their families were lifted from poverty359, and a review of child benefit programs introduced in Canada since 1945 showed that they had positive effects on child mental health and behaviour360.
- Each resource is detailed with accessibility options, such as languages available and cost considerations.
Visit our dedicated hub for more research-backed information and resources on mental health and well-being. They found that while these youths are more likely to experience mental health conditions, they are less likely to use mental health services. In 2021, researchers reviewed research into barriers to mental health service use among adolescents from historically marginalized groups. A 2020 review concluded that culturally sensitive interventions from professionals could help increase treatment seeking and improve mental health outcomes.
Encouragingly, brief individual383 or group‐based384, 385 psychological and behavioural interventions appear to reduce depressive and internalizing symptoms in refugees, including children386 and adolescents384, though these may not be sustained in the long‐term post‐intervention385, and some evidence is of low quality386. There is systematic review evidence from RCTs that providing psychosocial interventions to refugees is effective in reducing PTSD symptoms382. Nonetheless, designing, testing and implementing interventions which seek to modify social or physical environments in order to improve public health is notoriously difficult.
