{"id":47411,"date":"2022-04-18T17:36:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T00:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=47411"},"modified":"2022-04-18T17:36:41","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T00:36:41","slug":"covid-19-pandemic-worsens-the-mental-health-of-minority-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=47411","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Pandemic Worsens the Mental Health of Minority Children"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Jenny Manrique<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that surveyed more than 7,000 high school students, revealed that 55.1% described suffering emotional abuse, 44.2% reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 9% attempted suicide. More young women and LGBTQ+ youth saw a rise in suicidal behavior, more Asian kids confronted racism and hate, more Black youth and Native Americans experienced hunger and economic devastation and along with Latinos, suffered mental stress due to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

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A panel of experts convened by Ethnic Media Services explained that to avert a \u201cpandemic\u201d of future adults with serious emotional and mental disorders, it\u2019s important to foster a positive ethnic racial identity. They argue that civic engagement in particular, can be a mental health intervention: building opportunities for young people to speak truth to power and connect with their communities is key for their development.<\/p>\n

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Angela Vasquez, MSW, policy director for mental health at The Children’s Partnership: <\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cNearly 50% of youth who are severely impaired with a major depressive episode did not receive treatment\u2026 Black and Latino children were about 14% less likely than white youth to receive treatment for their depression\u2026 Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Native youth, so nearly three and a half times higher than the national average. And high school girls across all races and ethnicities made plans to attempt suicide more than boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cOver half of Latina girls are worried about a friend or family member being deported. Nearly a quarter have been harassed because of their family name, or country of origin. Since the pandemic started, Asian youth have been experiencing harassment and bullying.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cFamily separation harms children’s mental and physical health; children of undocumented parents are at risk of behavioral problems. Having parents taken away undermines family economic security. The climate of fear further restricts children, access to education, public benefits, and other services.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cDirect and vicarious exposure to police violence, including immigration enforcement are contributors to toxic stress\u2026There is a large growing campaign for police free schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dr. Ilan Shapiro, Pediatrician, chief medical affairs officer of Altamed federally qualified health centers, Los Angeles <\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cAs a pediatrician, they never tell you about all the tools that you need to bring on board for a pandemic, especially on the suffering of a community that has lost so much from life complications. And it’s not just the Latino Hispanic community\u2026 We need to make sure that we create structural changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere’s something called the Internet that most of my patients don’t have\u2026 There was a year that they were at home doing nothing, eating whatever, they were feeling depressed, anxious without moving, the (pandemic) ramifications were horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cAt least 50% of the patients that I take care of, were directly touched by COVID-19: they were sick, they had a family member that was close to them that actually died, or they were harmed because of the pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe need to translate medical terms to an actionable language that our community can actually do something with\u2026 It’s up to us to make sure that we create open conversations and resources with media with healthcare providers.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Myo Thwin Myint, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Tulane University School of Medicine, He serves on the American Academy of Child and Adolescent (AACAP) Training and Education Committee New Orleans, Louisiana:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cDisparity exists in terms of racial minoritized groups, as well as a gender and sexual minoritized groups. Particularly our LGBTQ and trans kids suffer disproportionately from the mental health challenges because of the unjust societal challenges. Across the country, many state legislatures are discussing passing laws that add additional stress to get appropriate care.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur Surgeon General has put out a general mental health advisory and (recognized that) a crisis is happening. It was really good to see that there’s recognition from the federal government and we hope that what follows will be an investment in our youth’s mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe should being able to go out to the youth where the challenges are happening rather than waiting in our clinic and ivory towers where we know there are systemic challenges such as transportation. We need to be thinking very creatively how we are going to be providing care.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sydney McKinney, PhD, Executive Director of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute based in Brooklyn:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cAddressing the mental health and wellness of black women and girls is really vital to reducing their risk of coming into contact with the juvenile legal and the criminal legal system\u2026 Among black teenage girls, suicide death rates increased from 2001 to 2017 by 182%.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cNearly 2 million young people are arrested by police every year. And data show that 75% of those have experienced traumatic victimization in their lifetime\u2026 Black girls account for 43% of girls who are in youth detention which is more than any other racial group.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe pandemic has exacerbated the mental health needs of black girls and gender expansive youth who are directly impacted by the foster care, the child welfare system and the juvenile legal system.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cMedia can elevate and bring attention to mental health and wellness programs and services that are culturally affirming and gender responsive. So much of what people know are clinical modalities, which many of the folks in our communities are reluctant to engage in for very well founded reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Jenny Manrique   A recent...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47412,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47411\/revisions\/47412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}