a doorway to ethnic media in the american heartland
Archive for reporting on mental health
February 22, 2010 at 3:05 pm · Filed under reporting on mental health, reporting on the ethnic elderly
So much tears at their hearts. They are alone. They lost what they had years ago. They never got back on their feet.
They can’t seem to find friends, find a place for themselves, find their voices, find a way to feel at ease, at home, at rest, at last, at rest.
The elderly suffer from depression, but the ethnic elderly endure it even more greatly.
This is one of the topics we’ll talk about at our meeting tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 23rda in a briefing for the ethnic news media from 10 am to noon at Age Options, 1048 Lake St. Suite 300, Oak Park.
And here is a story from New America Media that precisely makes the point about the mental health of the ethnic elderly.
See you there, Steve, steve@newstips.org or 773 595 8667
Managing her diabetes day-to-day is a constant struggle for Maria Carr. Like so many black elders, the 68-year-old San Franciscan must wrestle so much with the debilitating effects of chronic illness—the neuropathy that weakens her ability to walk or the continual pin pricks to test for blood sugar levels—that it gets her down.
It’s in those low hours that Carr’s thoughts often drift back to her “rotten childhood” on a farm in her native Jamaica and the constant verbal abuse she endured from her stepfather.
“People think about their past history,” said Carr. “I’m prepared for the worst. I’m not in the best health, but my mind is still okay. When I get depressed, though, it’s very difficult. Sometimes I wish I could die.”
Study: Ethnic Differences Suggest How Mental Health Services Can Better Serve Elders
“Racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive lower overall mental health care,” including less outpatient care and fewer visits to mental health specialists, said Daniel E. Jimenez, a research associate at Dartmouth Medical School.
But ending disparities in mental health care between ethnic elders and non-Latino Whites, Jimenez said, isn’t a simple matter of improving access to care. At the Gerontological Society of America conference last fall, Jimenez and colleagues at Harvard Medical School’s Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research showed that mental health care providers need to better understand differences among various groups to realize how to treat each more effectively.
Their analysis of data on almost 3,000 people ages 50 and older reveals patterns that can help mental health professionals reach out to ethnic seniors better. For example, although many Latinos generally have access to mental health care similar to that of non-Latino whites, older Hispanics are more apt to discuss mental health issues with their doctor than seek psychological counseling
Asian seniors in the study also had good access to mental health services but were deterred from seeking help by intense social stigma, which “carries with it a high level of shame and embarrassment.”
Furthermore, Jimenez and his co-researchers found, “The American health care system focuses on individual ailments, rather than taking a holistic approach.” Asian elders are frequently wary of Western medicine, and only use it as a last resort, when traditional folk remedies are not working,” they added.
The study did expose access disparities between older whites and Africa Americans, but Jimenez and colleagues noted that many blacks refrain from seeking mental health services because of significant distrust of health and mental health professionals, due to widespread discrimination over the years.
Jimenez and his co-researchers added, “Cultural differences may go unaddressed, which can lead to African American patients feeling underappreciated, misunderstood and less engaged in treatment.”
In another recent study in the January 2010 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, Hector Gonzalez and colleagues at Wayne State University in Detroit found that mental health researchers need to end the common practice of lumping people together as Asians, African Americans and so on, and do more to differentiate, say, between, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans or African Americans and black Caribbean.
Carr is among the four in 10 black older women who live alone in the United States. She is philosophical about her condition and knows that chronic illness can set off bouts with depression.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), depression is the most prevalent mental health problem among older adults.
Although groups of ethnic elders experience percentages of serious depression similar to that of older whites (about one in six people ages 50 or older at some point) mental health experts say that African-American, Latino, Asian and Native-American seniors are less apt to get treated. That’s because of their higher levels of poverty, lack of insurance or access to treatment and the pervasive stigma of mental illness in many cultures.
http://tinyurl.com/yg7su6d
February 15, 2010 at 10:31 am · Filed under Asian immigrants, reporting on mental health, reporting on the ethnic elderly
What are the stories we need to tell?
One of them is about becoming a citizen despite their age and despite the challenges they face.
Here is a story from a Seattle newspaper, carried by New America Media that tells this story. If there are any stories you have done like this, I would gladly add them here.
saludos,
Steve
Stories of Hard-Won Citizenship
IExaminer, News report, Vivian Luu, Posted: Feb 07, 2010 
Tran Tran is 75 years-old. He lives in Renton and enjoys shopping and visiting with friends in the Phuc Loc Tho mini-mall in Seattle.
Tran emigrated from Vietnam in 2002 after his son sponsored him, but didn’t become a U.S. citizen until Jan. 5. Tran had been trying to become an American for three years.
“I feel liberated, free,” Tran said. He was a telegraph operator for the U.S. military, but speaks very little English. We conversed in Vietnamese.
This is a feeling shared by many other Asian immigrants who come from hardship and, like Tran, seek solace in the United States. Obtaining citizenship means freedom from oppressive governments and a chance to start over.
More people are seeking U.S. citizenship than ever. More than 744,000 people were naturalized last year while just over a century ago, fewer than 8,000 people had that privilege, according to the US federal Web site.
Tran tried fleeing to the United States with his son in the early 90s. As father and son ran toward a small boat that would take them away, his son, Quoc, made it onto the boat. Tran was caught and imprisoned for two months.
“Quoc was young,” Tran said. “He was faster. He got away.”
It is no surprise, then, why he was determined to become an American. He took the naturalization exam in 2007 and failed. His application was rejected when he tried again because of speculation his roommate was a family member.
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=bc024f9390fae1ddb470145d48f2323c
September 9, 2009 at 5:36 pm · Filed under reporting on mental health
Not everyone thinks counselor, psychiatrist, mental health clinic when they are distressed. In some immigrant and minority communities these are not options. They are not considered. They are not part of the dialogue. They cannot afford to even think of it. They are not tradition. There are other ways to deal with such problems, or not to deal with them at all.
Reading this story in an LA area newspaper that belongs to a chain of Hispanic owned publications, brought this to mind. The reporter Elizabeth Hsing-Huei Chou, writes:
Estrada, a Rosemead resident who grew up in East Los Angeles and Montebello, hopes her account, which talks about her struggle to go from denial to acceptance of her illness, will help others avoid the mistakes she made.
She also writes about how her family and friends reacted to her illnesses. She says her traditional Mexican-American family did not know what to do with her.
“I was born here, but from my background… people pity people who lose their mind. They think they’re demonically possessed, or they become bums. Their families reject them. So it is very overwhelming for my family,” she says.
Here is the story:
http://egpnews.com/?p=12387
This what the ethnic media can do well: talk to its own community in a voice everyone hears.
If you know of any examples of reporting like this here, I’d gladly point them out. Any suggestions?
Here is a fine story that talks about this and this is the beginning. It is in Spanish, so click on the translator to the right on this page, if you need it.
En Chicago existen agencias que proveen servicios de salud mental para la comunidad latina e inmigrante, y también grupos de apoyo para sus familias
- FABIOLA POMAREDA / La Raza |
- 2009-07-26
“Los familiares vienen agotados, con la moral por el suelo; se sienten solos, culpables, con vergüenza o en negación; pero vienen porque los convenzo”, explica Olga Rosas.“Voy a sus casas y les hablo de mi experiencia”, cuenta la mujer, madre de un hijo con una enfermedad mental, y activa voluntaria para servicios en español de NAMI (Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Greater Chicago).
Esquizofrenia, trastorno bipolar, depresión crónica, trastorno de pánico y ansiedad son los males más comunes en la comunidad latina -nacidos aquí o inmigrantes-, dicen quienes atienden a estos clientes en agencias y clínicas de Chicago.
Pero sigue siendo difícil convencer a alguien para que busque ayuda, informar sobre los servicios disponibles y ahora también, mantener programas que atienden a esta población, en medio de las dificultades financieras.
SOBRELLEVAR LA CARGA
Como parte del trabajo que realiza en NAMI, Rosas recomienda a los clientes ir a terapia una vez a la semana, ya sea individual o en grupo. Sin embargo, cuando alguien vive en negación, no busca ayuda para su condición, y lo mismo sucede con la familia. “Por ejemplo, hay madres que no le dicen al doctor los síntomas de su hijo, porque el hijo le pidió: “Mamá, no le digas al doctor que yo escuchaba voces”.
