New Film De-Stigmatizes Mental Illness in South Asian Communities (posted 9/8)

A new independent film helps to educate audiences and de-stigmatize mental illness in Asian communities. A daughter who vowed never to return home is forced to confront her past...and discover that some family secrects shouldn't be hidden. Hiding Divya is a generational story of the three women who have inherited much more than they could have ever realized... each other. 

Hiding Divya has finished its theatrical release in New York City; Edison, New Jersey; North Bergen, New Jersey; Fremont, California; Novi, Michigan; & Peachtree, Georgia. It is now touring to colleges & universities.  Bring it to your school now!

Writer/director Rehana Mirza comments:

"It's been a long journey and we are incredibly excited to be able to bring the film to the big screen. When I first started writing this film, it was because of a family friend, Rashi Shyam, whose father had shot himself. No
one within the South Asian community even knew he was struggling with depression. No one acknowledged his depression even after that, when he was hospitalized. So we decided to make this film, hoping to de-stigmatize mental illness and bring awareness of the issue to all cultures.

Over the course of the film's production until now, things have changed - Rashi's father passed away. Her mother, too, after many years of having to
hide her day-to-day struggles from those she thought would not understand. And so the importance of the film has become even greater.

The film is a dynamic drama that explores the effects of bipolar disorder on Divya (played by the esteemed Madhur Jaffrey), her estranged daughter Linny (Pooja Kumar of Bollywood Hero), granddaughter Jia (newcomer Madeleine Massey), and the surrounding community in New Jersey. It's a wry, emotional, and sometimes humorous look at one family struggling to keep things together."

Watch the trailer and find the film on Facebook!

Study Examines Discrimination and the Mental Health of Mexican-American Adolescents (posted 9/8)

A new study published in in the July 2010 issue of the Journal of Counseling Psychology examined perceived racial/ethnic discrimination as a source of traumatic stress related to health risk behaviors among Mexican-American adolescents. The authors posit a theoretical model that suggests a mechanism by which discrimination can lead to health risk behaviors among Mexican-American adolescents and hypothesize that greater perceived discrimination would be related to higher levels of health risk behaviors, including alcohol use, marijuana use, other drug use, engaging in fights, and number of sexual partners. They further hypothesize that posttraumatic stress symptoms would mediate the relationship between perceived discrimination and health risk behaviors.

"The findings of this study support our theoretical model that perceived racial/ethnic discrimination is related to the development of posttraumatic stress symptoms among Mexican American adolescents, and, in turn, to higher levels of health risk behaviors," write the authors of the study.

National survey data indicate that Mexican-American adolescents engage in many health risk behaviors at higher rates than African-American and white adolescents. Increasing attention has been given to contextual stressors in the social environment in which adolescents live. One important aspect of the social environment for Mexican-American adolescents is experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination owing to their ethnic minority status. Mexican-American adolescents report high levels of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, which is the subjective experience of being treated unfairly, disrespected, disliked, stereotyped, and rejected relative to others in everyday experience on the basis of race or ethnicity.

Parents and adolescents who had participated in a previous study (Study 1) were re-contacted to participate in the current study (Study 2). For Study 1 (a study that examined marital conflict and adolescent-health-related functioning among Mexican Americans and whites), potential participants were randomly selected from the membership lists of a large health maintenance organization located in a semi-urban community in Northern California. At the time of Study 1, eligible adolescents were ages 12-15. Three years later, families were re-contacted to participate in Study 2, a longitudinal follow-up study examining inter-parental conflict and dating violence among adolescents. At baseline of Study 2, 124 of the Mexican-American adolescents participated in the research.

The authors found that

• Adolescents who perceived more racial/ethnic discrimination reported worse posttraumatic stress symptoms.
• Adolescents who experienced heightened posttraumatic stress symptoms reported more alcohol use, more other drug use, more involvement in fights, and more sexual partners.
• Even when posttraumatic stress was included as a mediator, perceived racial/ethnic discrimination was related to fights; adolescents who perceived more discrimination were involved in more fights.
• The mediated effects of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination on health risk behaviors were significant for alcohol use, other drug use, involvement in fights, and number of sexual partners. Thus, posttraumatic stress symptoms mediated the effects of perceived racial/ethnic discrimination on alcohol use, other drug use, and number of sexual partners and partially mediated the relationship between perceived racial/ethnic discrimination and involvement in fights.

The authors conclude that "this study has important implications for training counseling psychologists and mental health counselors working with Mexican American adolescents in school and community settings."

Flores E, Tschann JM, Dimas JM, et al. 2010. Perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and healthy risk behaviors among Mexican American adolescents. Journal of Counseling Psychology 57(3):264-273. Abstract available at APA PsycNET.

Report on Health Care Reform and Health Equity (posted 9/8)

The new health care reform law establishes a strong foundation for eliminating persistent racial disparities in the U.S. health system, but more needs to be done to expand opportunities for good health for all, according to a report released today by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the National Health Policy Training Alliance for Communities of Color.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has released a new report that identifies areas where the new law may significantly improve health and health care access and quality and reduce health inequities, as well as areas where more work is needed to fully eliminate inequities. In it, the authors, Dr. Dennis Andrulis of the Texas Health Institute (THI) and an Associate Professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health, Nadia Siddiqui of THI, Jonathan Purtle of Drexel University School of Public Health, and Dr. Lisa Duchon of Health Management Associates, said the new law “has the potential to seed, promote and guide diversity initiatives in this country for decades to come.”
 
This new report titled "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010: Advancing Health Equity for Racially and Ethnically Diverse Populations" analyzes the health reform law for its potential to address these inequities.  It examines both the general provisions of the law, such as health insurance expansions and reforms, as well as equity-specific provisions, such as efforts to improve federal health data collection and improve both the diversity, cultural and linguistic competence of the health workforce.

“The breadth of the health care reform law offers an unprecedented opportunity to reduce racial and ethnic inequities. However, its depth is still uncertain,” said Dr. Andrulis.  “With additional specificity and appropriations, the law will make enormous strides to improve timely access to high-quality health care, free from barriers related to culture, language, income and geography. The law will also go a long way toward ensuring that many populations receive culturally-appropriate health information, and that practitioners will receive appropriate training to address the needs of diverse populations. These and related provisions in the law are central and essential for promoting health equity.”

The report also points to provisions in the law that will increase the nation’s focus on and investment in health promotion and disease prevention.  This includes both clinical preventive services, as well as community-based primary prevention to ensure that all communities are conducive to good health.

Indian Country Reports on SAMHSA’s Mental Health Initiative (posted 9/7)

"A new mental health initiative from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is aiming at a high incidence of serious mental health problems in Indian country, officials said. Released in July, the new media directive is specifically aimed at young American Indian adults, ages 18 to 25, to talk openly about mental health issues with materials that caregivers hope will spur change about negative attitudes associated with mental illness in tribal communities." Reports Indian Country Today, a nationally distributed weekly newspaper that reports on news relevant to the Indigenous people of the Americas.

The article highlights SAMHSA's national public service advertising campaign to promote recovery from mental health problems within multicultural communities. This campaign was released in July in collaboration with the Ad Council and the National Network to Eliminate Disparities in Behavioral Health (NNED). These PSAs were part of a larger multicultural public service effort designed to reach Hispanic/Latino, American Indian, Chinese American, and African American communities during Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in July.

"Creators are hoping the new media campaign will turn around the trend to silence and suffering common in native communities. One part of the campaign addresses being strong and self-reliant as a hindrance to getting assistance in tribal settings. One emphasis is on seeking outside help," continues the article from ICT. Read more.

A New Way to Talk About the Social Determinants of Health (posted 9/1)

Watch this recording of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Grantmakers in Health webinar, "A New Way to Talk About the Social Determinants of Health" to learn about how organizations can create more compelling, effective and persuasive messages about the importance of social determinants of health that resonate across the political spectrum.

The webinar took place on July 29, 2010 and features the findings of an iterative research and message development process that took place over the course of four years and utilized both traditional and nontraditional research techniques.  Users can watch the recording of the webinar and download the slides and all resources presented during the call. For more information click here.

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