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Mental Health Disparities Among LEP Individuals Chapter

Advocacy Area

The selected advocacy issue is mental health disparities among Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals. Sources contend that LEP individuals face a higher burden of psychiatric illness than the general American population (Mirza et al., 2020; Garcia et al., 2018). Unfortunately, the rate at which they seek care for mental illness even when they have a probable diagnosis or are symptomatic is way lower than that of their counterparts with good English proficiency (Mirza et al., 2020). The rate at which US-born citizens seek mental health services stands at 40 percent, as compared to only 23 percent for immigrant Asian and Latinos with LEP (Ohtani et al., 2015).

The disparities are also evident within immigrant populations, with studies showing that good English proficiency increases the likelihood of using mental health services by approximately 19 percent (Mizra et al., 2020). LEP individuals within Latino and Asian immigrant populations were 55 percent less likely than their English proficient counterparts to attend community-based mental illness treatment programs (Ohtani et al., 2015). The findings of the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), which surveyed the predominant immigrant groups language needs, showed that LEP Latinos had lower odds of receiving mental health services as compared to English-proficient Latinos (Odds Ratio =.19) (Ohtani et al., 2015). Only 42 percent of LEP Latino individuals and 32 percent of LEP Asians access mental health services at some point in...

…These changes could range from investing in physical interpreter services, introducing interpretation services via telehealth systems, producing communications in multiple languages, and instituting stable frameworks for aggrieved LEP individuals to report and obtain relief. Advocacy at the individual level could entail organizing awareness campaigns with local celebrities to sensitize the local immigrant communities on mental illness, the key symptoms, and when and where to seek help. At the state level, advocacy could entail producing fact-sheets explaining the challenges and recommendations, which could be distributed to local politicians, lawmakers and policymakers at other levels of government to influence health policy.

In conclusion, nursing provides an effective framework for addressing the disparities in access to mental health through advocacy at…

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References

Garcia, M. E., Ochoa-Frongia, L., Moise, N., Aguilera, A., & Fernandez, A. (2018). Collaborative care for depression among patients with limited English proficiency: A systematic review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 33(1), 347-57.

Mizra, M., Harrison, E., Bentley, J., Chang, H., & Birman, D. (2020). Language discordance in mental health services: An exploratory survey of mental health providers and interpreters. Societies, 10(66), 1-14.

Ohtani, A., Suzuki, T., Takeuchi, H., & Uchida, H. (2015). Language barriers and access to psychiatric care: A systematic review. Psychiatric Services, 66(8), 798-805.

Proctor, K., Wilson-Fredrick, S., & Haffer, S. C. (2018). The limited English proficient population: Describing Medicare, Medicaid, and dual beneficiaries. Health Equity, 2(1), 82-89.

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