The Role of Generational Status in Access to Mental Health Care and Quality of Mental Health of Asian Indians in the U.S.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.58445/rars.294Keywords:
mental health, generational status, asian indiansAbstract
In today’s world, mental health is a critical, yet underlooked topic that affects the health and well-being of everyone around the world (CDC, 2023). However, wide disparities within the mental healthcare industry currently exist because of a myriad of factors, the most prominent being cultural factors. Such individuals that retain these cultural factors include first and second-generation immigrants in America, more specifically Asian Indians. However, there are substantial differences between first-generation immigrants, who are more likely to retain their native cultural values, compared to second and later generations of immigrants, who may be conflicted by both the American and cultural values of their parents. Therefore, this study aims to discover how the different mindsets, lifestyle, and interaction between first and second, and later generations of Asian Indians affect their access to mental healthcare and quality of mental health.
An anonymous two-part survey was given to a mixture of first and second and later generations of Asian Indians. The survey had respondents fill out a demographic profile on themselves and answer various multiple-choice questions regarding mental health counseling, barriers to mental healthcare, and mental health symptoms. The data was then analyzed to test our hypotheses regarding access to mental healthcare and mental health quality.
References
Badrinathan, S., Kapur, D., Kay, J., Vaishnav, M. (2021, June 9). Social Realities of Indian
Americans: Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey. Carnegie
Endowment For International Peace.
https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/09/social-realities-of-indian-americans-results-fro
m-2020-indian-american-attitudes-survey-pub-84667
Borenstein, J. (2020, August). Stigma, Prejudice and Discrimination Against People with Mental
Illness. American Psychiatric Association.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/stigma-and-discrimination
Budiman, A. (2021, April 29). Indians in the U.S. Fact Sheet. Pew Research Center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/asian-americans-indians-in-the-u-s/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, April 25). About Mental Health. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealth/learn/index.htm#:~:text=Mental%20health%20includes
%20our%20emotional,others%2C%20and%20make%20healthy%20choices.&text=Ment
al%20health%20is%20important%20at,childhood%20and%20adolescence%20through%
adulthood
Chang, J., Natsuaki, M. N., & Chen, C. N. (2013). The importance of family factors and
generation status: mental health service use among Latino and Asian Americans.
Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology, 19(3), 236–247.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a003290114
Derr, A. S. (2015, December 15). Mental Health Service use among immigrants in the United
States: A systematic review. Psychiatric Services.
https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201500004
Gautam, S., & Jain, N. (2010). Indian culture and psychiatry. Indian journal of psychiatry,
(Suppl 1), S309–S313. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5545.69259
Gopalkrishnan, N. (2018, June 19). Cultural diversity and mental health: Considerations for
policy and practice. Frontiers. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2018.00179
Hartshorne, J. K., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Pinker, S. (2018). A critical period for second language
acquisition: Evidence from 2/3 million English speakers. Cognition, 177, 263–277
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.04.007
Khera, G. S., & Nakamura, N. (2018). Substance use, gender, and generation status among
Asian Indians in the United States. Journal of ethnicity in substance abuse, 17(3),
–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332640.2016.1201715
Lyons, D. (2020, January 26). How (And Why) To Determine Your Level Of Language
Proficiency. Babbel Magazine.
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/how-and-why-to-determine-language-proficiency
Muhorakeye, O., and Biracyaza, E. (2021) Exploring Barriers to Mental Health Services
Utilization at Kabutare District Hospital of Rwanda: Perspectives From Patients. Front.
Psychol. 12:638377. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.638377
Niemeyer, H., Bieda, A., Michalak, J., Schneider, S., & Margraf, J. (2019). Education and mental
health: Do psychosocial resources matter?. SSM - population health, 7, 100392.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.10039215
Panjwani, S., Manyam, S. B., & Prasath, P. R. (2021). The Impact of Immigration Status on the
Quality of Life Among Asian Indians in the United States of America. Journal of Asia
Pacific Counseling, 11(2), 109–124. https://doi.org/10.18401/2021.11.2.7
Siddiqui, Z. A., & Sambamoorthi, U. (2022). Psychological Distress Among Asian Indians and
Non-Hispanic Whites in the United States. Health equity, 6(1), 516–526.
https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2021.0159
U.S. Census Bureau. (2021, December 16). About the Foreign-Born Population. Census.gov.
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/foreign-born/about.html
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health. (2021, April). Mental
and Behavioral Health - Asian Americans. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=54
Vaghela, P., & Ueno, K. (2017). Racial-ethnic Identity Pairings and Mental Health of
Second-generation Asian Adolescents. Sociological Perspectives, 60(4), 834–852.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26579836
Yang, K. G., Rodgers, C. R., Lee, E., & Cook, B. L. (2019, October 2). Disparities in Mental
healthcare Utilization and Perceived Need Among Asian Americans: 2012–2016.
Psychiatric Services. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31575351/
Downloads
Posted
Categories
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Jay Patel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.