Breaking the Silence: Recognizing V-Tech Shootings is an issue of Unequal Mental Health Care Services
The disparities APIAs face regarding access to mental health care prevention, assessment and treatment are issues that I've come to care about and have tried to raise awareness about since I've been working at SEAMAAC. I will put my own post up about this soon, but I wanted to share an article that a friend of mine wrote on this topic especially in light of the Virginia Tech incident. Our community needs to urgently address mental health.
-Michelle
Breaking the Silence: Recognizing V-Tech Shootings is an issue of Unequal Mental Health Care Services
By Jason Jaewan Lee
The Virginia Tech shootings highlight the disparities in mental care for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AA/PIs). As the media coverage surrounding the Virginia Tech Shootings continues, the hope of these unmet needs being addressed by society diminishes as news continues to leave out this vital discussion. Instead the media chooses to focus on gun control, school security, and the individual psychology of the shooter as the causes of the violence. South Koreans abroad are propped up to display their guilt and condolences for the victims; Cho Seung-Hui’s own family shamefully denounces and disowns him—all of which further distract from the heart of the matter—how did Cho fall through the cracks?
Six Million American men will be diagnosed with depression this year alone, but like Cho, millions more will suffer silently in the shadows-undiagnosed or unwilling to come forward for treatment; few studies examine the response of minorities to mental health treatment. And in particular, there is a scarcity of knowledge on the mental health needs of AA/PIs. What little we do know is that older Asian American women have the highest suicide rate of women over age of 65 in the US. In addition, national epidemiological studies have included few AA/PIs and yet to include the broad cross section of AA/PIs which is comprised of 43 different ethnic subgroups.
The scientific neglect of the AA/PA community only compounds the fact that AA/PIs have low utilization of mental health services. One study reveals only 17 percent of those experiencing problems sought care mostly after disturbances became severe. This is because treatment goes undetected, ignored or delayed until symptoms reach crisis proportion-due to shame, stigma or misdiagnosis. For Korean Americans, mental disorders are associated with craziness, biological defect, and social acceptability, as a result psychiatric services are avoided altogether and problems internalized.
This strikes close to home. My brother was recently diagnosed with a form of social anxiety disorder. This came to light after a court-mandated physiological review. If he did not get regular counseling he could have been looking at harder times up state. Only when the realization of continuing to ignore my brother’s mental health would lead to his demise did my parents recognize they needed to openly discuss the issue of mental health within the family and encourage my brother to seek counseling.
Even if AA/PIs do seek counseling there are structural challenges to accessing services: 21 percent of AA/PIs lack health insurance compared to 16 percent of all Americans. Korean Americans have the highest uninsured rate at 52% among all ethnicities. And according to the Surgeon General: Nearly 1 out of 2 AA/PIs will have difficulty accessing mental health treatment because they are limited English proficient or cannot find services that accommodate their language. And approximately 70 AAPI providers are available for every 100,000 AA/PIs in the U.S., compared to 173 per 100,000 whites.
Finally America’s legacy of racism prevents America from accepting depression’s destructive impact on AA/PIs. As was reported, Cho Seung-Hui was told to go back to China and put down because of his accent through out his life by his peers.
For Koreans, hwa-byung or “suppressed anger syndrome” characterized by constriction in the chest, palpitations, headaches, anxiety, et. al are experienced by those who have a hard times expressing their feelings much of their lives which can lead to violent episodes of rage. Perhaps Cho suffered from this. In addition, Asian Americans are seen as the “model minority” which posits Asians are doing better than other minorities. This racist ideology leads to the false assumptions that AA/PIs do not suffer from mental illnesses. The reality is 14 percent of the AA/PIs population lives in poverty; 62 percent is foreign born. For Koreans the number is greater—75 percent immigrant. Therefore language barriers, financial resources, and knowledge of accessing treatment are all barriers for Asian Americans to receiving culturally competent mental health care services.
The tragedy of V-Tech could have been prevented not by gun control or beefing school security. None of that stops a kid from “letting go.” Cho gave up when he brandished two hang guns on the Hokie campus. No, if we are to learn anything from this, as a society we must be prepared to place a premium on mental heath services that is tailored to the specific needs of each culture and community. This can be achieved by investing into research into under resourced communities, training mental health professionals in cultural sensitivity, redesigning the structure of service delivery for outpatient clinics, educating immigrants about mental illness, broadening the practices and vocabulary in psychiatry to incorporate the belief systems of other cultures, and increasing the representation of mental health professionals from diverse cultures. If these systems and practices were in place, perhaps Cho Seung-Hui, a victim of an inadequate U.S. health care system, and the countless others who suffer from debilitating mental illnesses, can be given a fighting chance.
About the author:
Jason Jaewan Lee, a 2nd generation Korean American is a writer, mixologist, intellectual worker, and activist. He can be reached at jasonssi@gmail.com.
-Michelle
Breaking the Silence: Recognizing V-Tech Shootings is an issue of Unequal Mental Health Care Services
By Jason Jaewan Lee
The Virginia Tech shootings highlight the disparities in mental care for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AA/PIs). As the media coverage surrounding the Virginia Tech Shootings continues, the hope of these unmet needs being addressed by society diminishes as news continues to leave out this vital discussion. Instead the media chooses to focus on gun control, school security, and the individual psychology of the shooter as the causes of the violence. South Koreans abroad are propped up to display their guilt and condolences for the victims; Cho Seung-Hui’s own family shamefully denounces and disowns him—all of which further distract from the heart of the matter—how did Cho fall through the cracks?
Six Million American men will be diagnosed with depression this year alone, but like Cho, millions more will suffer silently in the shadows-undiagnosed or unwilling to come forward for treatment; few studies examine the response of minorities to mental health treatment. And in particular, there is a scarcity of knowledge on the mental health needs of AA/PIs. What little we do know is that older Asian American women have the highest suicide rate of women over age of 65 in the US. In addition, national epidemiological studies have included few AA/PIs and yet to include the broad cross section of AA/PIs which is comprised of 43 different ethnic subgroups.
The scientific neglect of the AA/PA community only compounds the fact that AA/PIs have low utilization of mental health services. One study reveals only 17 percent of those experiencing problems sought care mostly after disturbances became severe. This is because treatment goes undetected, ignored or delayed until symptoms reach crisis proportion-due to shame, stigma or misdiagnosis. For Korean Americans, mental disorders are associated with craziness, biological defect, and social acceptability, as a result psychiatric services are avoided altogether and problems internalized.
This strikes close to home. My brother was recently diagnosed with a form of social anxiety disorder. This came to light after a court-mandated physiological review. If he did not get regular counseling he could have been looking at harder times up state. Only when the realization of continuing to ignore my brother’s mental health would lead to his demise did my parents recognize they needed to openly discuss the issue of mental health within the family and encourage my brother to seek counseling.
Even if AA/PIs do seek counseling there are structural challenges to accessing services: 21 percent of AA/PIs lack health insurance compared to 16 percent of all Americans. Korean Americans have the highest uninsured rate at 52% among all ethnicities. And according to the Surgeon General: Nearly 1 out of 2 AA/PIs will have difficulty accessing mental health treatment because they are limited English proficient or cannot find services that accommodate their language. And approximately 70 AAPI providers are available for every 100,000 AA/PIs in the U.S., compared to 173 per 100,000 whites.
Finally America’s legacy of racism prevents America from accepting depression’s destructive impact on AA/PIs. As was reported, Cho Seung-Hui was told to go back to China and put down because of his accent through out his life by his peers.
For Koreans, hwa-byung or “suppressed anger syndrome” characterized by constriction in the chest, palpitations, headaches, anxiety, et. al are experienced by those who have a hard times expressing their feelings much of their lives which can lead to violent episodes of rage. Perhaps Cho suffered from this. In addition, Asian Americans are seen as the “model minority” which posits Asians are doing better than other minorities. This racist ideology leads to the false assumptions that AA/PIs do not suffer from mental illnesses. The reality is 14 percent of the AA/PIs population lives in poverty; 62 percent is foreign born. For Koreans the number is greater—75 percent immigrant. Therefore language barriers, financial resources, and knowledge of accessing treatment are all barriers for Asian Americans to receiving culturally competent mental health care services.
The tragedy of V-Tech could have been prevented not by gun control or beefing school security. None of that stops a kid from “letting go.” Cho gave up when he brandished two hang guns on the Hokie campus. No, if we are to learn anything from this, as a society we must be prepared to place a premium on mental heath services that is tailored to the specific needs of each culture and community. This can be achieved by investing into research into under resourced communities, training mental health professionals in cultural sensitivity, redesigning the structure of service delivery for outpatient clinics, educating immigrants about mental illness, broadening the practices and vocabulary in psychiatry to incorporate the belief systems of other cultures, and increasing the representation of mental health professionals from diverse cultures. If these systems and practices were in place, perhaps Cho Seung-Hui, a victim of an inadequate U.S. health care system, and the countless others who suffer from debilitating mental illnesses, can be given a fighting chance.
About the author:
Jason Jaewan Lee, a 2nd generation Korean American is a writer, mixologist, intellectual worker, and activist. He can be reached at jasonssi@gmail.com.
posted by Yellow Rage at
4/24/2007 10:51:00 AM
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