Research Paper on Latino Mental Healthcare

Introduction

Latinos are among the most populous ethnic minority group in the United States of America, representing 17% of the entire population in the region. Between the years 2000 and 2009, their population increased by more than 35%, thereby projecting an approximately 25% of Latinos in America by the year 2050, with a concentration in states such as New Mexico, California as well as Texas (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). With the dramatic increase in this population, there is a significant change in the face of the nation's youth for the last decade. Today, one out of every five students in public schools are Latino, and the increasing population is expected to increase this ratio. The Latino youth face a variety of challenges including poor socioeconomic resources, behavioral problems as well as lower educational attainment. This paper gives a comprehensive review of three articles, showing the Latino population in the country and most importantly, how they suffer from mental and emotional problems, by the time they come to America.

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The national survey that was carried out in the year 2007 shows that many Latino youths have a higher possibility of feeling sad and being hopeless, about 15.9% committing suicide while 10.2% attempting to commit suicide (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). More to this, the research by research Potochnick & Perreira (2010) explains that anxiety and depression relates with the high rate of the youths committing suicide, while adolescents are facing the risk of depression, with a rate of 35-50% to be involved in harmful actions.

The most likely mental health conditions and disorders amongst Latino youths are depression and anxiety. According to the article by Potochnick & Perreira (2010), Latino youths between the ages of 11 to 15 years old have a greater possibility of suffering from depressive symptoms than the whites, Asian American and the African American. As the leading ethnic group in America, Latino youth end up suffering from these disorders due to the problems faced in their first countries, specifically, poor education, unemployment among others.

Due to their population, while others being illegally in the country, the Latino is likely to get little or completely no help regarding their mental status, unlike the rest of the affected individuals in America. Other factors include an unaffordable price of the services, lack of access as well as few public mental health services to sustain mental health referrals (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). The healthcare changes in the country are therefore aimed to assist towards addressing some of these hindrances to health care and increase the mental health care services utilisation, especially to the Latino youths, being the most affected.

Apart from the structural factors identified above, attitudinal and cultural barriers also affect the way in which mental health services are delivered among the Latinos. For instance, negative beliefs, as well as attitudes concerning mental health services and treatment, interferes with mental health services organizations negatively. Moreover, religious among the Latino can make it difficult for them to seek help in the psychiatric treatment infrastructures in the country. As such, most of them suffer for long, without any professional help whatsoever.

Several stressful events are most likely to affect the individual as well as families' well-being amongst the first generation youths. For instance, research on the current immigrant school children of ages 8-15 years has shown that exposure to violence is positively related to depressive symptoms (Bustamante et al., 2010). Other factors include discrimination, changes in the family rules as well as responsibilities, separation from the family members and also exposure to traumatic events.

The immigrants' mental health is also affected by the voluntary as well as involuntary nature of the migration. Voluntary immigrants are involved in the migration journeys with the aim of improving their circumstances and futures. Immigration is a chance that is worth the stress and challenges bared. The migration of adolescents, especially the Latino who migrate as a result of decisions by their parents may not be taken as a chance or a voluntary choice but is viewed as a significant source of stress (Bustamante et al., 2010). Also, Latino immigrant youth depend on internal strength as well as external support systems to overcome the challenges of acculturation. The immigrant optimism theory states that the Latino immigrant youth get into the United States with a resiliency that hinders them from specific problems and stressors they go through during migration and acculturation (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). As such, the U.S environment gives more chances and rewards for the highly motivated individuals, compared to the ones from harsh environments in their respective countries.

The Latino Adolescent Migration, Health, and Adaptation Project (LAMHA) provide data from August 2004 and November 2006. LAMHA researchers used a stratified cluster collecting format to gather survey data on 281 first-generation Latino youth and their respective caretakers (Potochnick & Perreira, 2010). The Latino population was divided into urban and rural strata hence ensuring a representative sample. This was higher among the high schools in areas of a high growth population rate. There was a random selection of the schools within the rural population, for participation in the study, in proportion to the number of students in those schools.

As the article shows, every school that was involved in the study prepared a roster of all the youths who identified themselves with Latino surnames. These youths were later contacted and also screened for eligibility. Strictly, one person per household would participate. The ones that did not take part in the study indicated that they had inadequate time. Adolescents and their parents took part in interview administered surveys in a language of their wish whether English or Spanish. The research by the LAMHA concerned questions involving family relationships, school and community experiences, the immigration of the youths' histories as well as socioeconomic background. There are two mental health outcomes namely depression and anxiety. A range of scores on the Children's Depression Inventory from 0-54 and a cut point of 20 for a general screening shows adolescents to be in the risk of suffering from a depression disorder (Villatoro, Dixon & Mays, 2016). The study categorized mental health stressors into migration experience as well as discrimination.

Moreover, there are five migration experience stressors, which the Latino youth encounter during the process. To begin with was the calculation of the total number of years that the adolescents are away from their caretakers specifically parents. There was a classification of the adolescents as going through a stressful migration if they had been physically attacked or accidentally injured during their immigration to the US (Villatoro, Dixon & Mays, 2016). Also, self-reports of their involvement in the migration decision were used to categorize adolescents as not involved or very involved. The adolescents' level of dissatisfaction was derived from the migration decision from agreeing or disagree responses. As the research found out, almost 7% of the first generation Latino adolescents had depressive disorders, 29% had symptoms for anxiety, females were less likely to have symptoms of depression as compared to the males, and about 75% of the immigrant adolescent separated from their caretakers before their migration.

References

Bustamante, A. V., Chen, J., Rodriguez, H. P., Rizzo, J. A., & Ortega, A. N. (2010). Use of preventive care services among Latino subgroups. American journal of preventive medicine, 38(6), 610-619.

Potochnick, S. R., & Perreira, K. M. (2010). Depression and anxiety among first-generation immigrant Latino youth: key correlates and implications for future research. The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 198(7), 470.

Villatoro, A. P., Dixon, E., & Mays, V. M. (2016). Faith-based organizations and the Affordable Care Act: Reducing Latino mental health care disparities. Psychological services, 13(1), 92.