What Is Mental Health? Can Mental Health Impact on People of Color and Minority Groups?
Some groups may face a disproportionate mental health impact during the COVID-19 pandemic. These include people of color, migrants, and people of various ethnic backgrounds. In this Special Feature, we dive deeper into the issue.
The fact that the current pandemic is affecting people’s mental health as much as their physical health is no secret.
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People of color at high risk of PTSD
According to a 2008 study in the journal Health Affairs — which primarily discusses issues inherent to the United States — “[m]ental healthcare disparities, defined as unfair differences in access to or quality of care according to race and ethnicity, are quite common.”
“In general, minorities, particularly African Americans, have poorer health and health outcomes than do [white people],” its authors note.
Although “Hispanics and [black individuals] [have a] lower risk of having a psychiatric disorder as compared with their white counterparts, […] those who become ill tend to have more persistent disorders.”
People of diverse ethnicities also account for a large proportion of the workforce deemed “essential” during the pandemic, which means that they are more at risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus.
The language barrier and other obstacles
Besides systemic biases, discrimination, and financial barriers, another significant obstacle that sometimes stands in the way of people’s access to healthcare is language.
For example, a 2015 study in Health and Social Care in the Community found that “[l]anguage and concerns about services’ cultural and religious appropriateness” prevent a significant number of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds from receiving much-needed formal support.
In a teleconference from April 24, 2020 — sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a public health philanthropy based in Princeton, NJ — Prof. Margarita Alegría, chief of the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, argued that language barriers can be an issue for people belonging to minority groups.
“Many linguistic minorities, especially Latinos, will not have suitable resources to really access mental healthcare and substance abuse [resources] — we already know that,” she said, after warning about the pandemic’s likely impact on the mental health of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Cultural stigma around mental health
Stigma surrounding mental health issues in culturally homogeneous groups can also stop people from seeking the support they need.
A 2017 study in the Rand Health Quarterly, for instance, found that levels of self-stigma were particularly high among Asian American and Latino participants.
“For Asian American [people], stigma appears to figure most prominently in their beliefs about the level of functioning and status of individuals with mental health problems,” the study authors write.
Stress can impact immunity: Experts say good mental health key to fight coronavirus – Want to Know more, Just go through the Link