Category: Culture / Ethnicity / Race
Stephanie Yu, M.A.
University of California, Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES, California
Omar Gudiño, ABPP, Ph.D.
Clinical Child Psychology Program University of Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Belinda Chen, M.A.
Clinical Psychology PhD Student
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Yazmin Meza Lazaro, PhD
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Stephanie Yu, M.A.
University of California, Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES, California
Sylvanna Vargas, M.P.H., Ph.D.
UCLA
Los Angeles, California
Stigma has been defined as the co-occurrence of labeling, negative stereotyping, separation of “us” and “them,” status loss, and discrimination against specific groups, and is a function of differences in power (Link & Phelan, 2001). Stigma may drive adverse mental health outcomes for marginalized groups through social devaluation of minoritized identities (e.g., individuals with mental illness, or from racial/ethnic marginalized and sexual and gender minority groups; Lucas & Phelan, 2012). Moreover, stigma maintains marginalization of specific social groups at structural and interpersonal levels, thus shrinking the distribution of one’s opportunities across multiple life domains (Link & Phelan, 2001).
Psychological research has tended to focus on the interpersonal, individual-level aspects of stigma as important drivers of mental health disparities (Hatzenbuehler, 2017). Indeed, research suggests that individuals holding stigmatized identities have poorer mental health outcomes (Alegría et al., 2015; DiPlacido & Fallahi, 2020) and critically underutilize mental health services despite high rates of need, in some part due to mental health and treatment stigma (Clement et al., 2014).
Less work has attended to the broader impacts of structural stigma, including questions about how societal conditions, systemic bias, and institutional policies driven by social devaluation systemically disadvantage individuals holding marginalized identities. There is a need to develop a research agenda that acknowledges how stigma manifests at the structural level with resultant impacts on individual-level interactions, to influence mental health outcomes in marginalized communities.
Through this lens, the current symposium presents findings from studies using both quantitative and qualitative methods to explore how multiple aspects of stigma, starting from the structural and trickling down to the individual level, confers disparities across a range of mental health contexts. The first talk will share findings from natural language processing methods applied to first responder notes to evaluate whether first responders for youth in psychiatric emergency hold racially charged prejudices that may influence decisions about involuntary hospitalization for racial/ethnic marginalized youth (Chen). The second talk will describe results showing that worry related to immigration and documentation status, driven by exclusionary policies, can suppress help-seeking behavior among Latinx youth (Lazaro). The next talk will examine the impact of living in ethnic enclaves on the mental health impacts of discrimination among sexual minority people of color (Vargas), followed by findings on the influence of treatment stigma on mental health help-seeking behavior in Latinx and Asian American youth (Yu). Acknowledging and addressing the multidimensional ways through which stigma perpetuates social inequities for marginalized communities is paramount for ensuring equitable mental health treatment.
Presenter: Belinda Chen, M.A. – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Han Du, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Joyce Lui, Ph.D. – University of Maryland- College Park
Co-author: Lisa Benson, PhD – Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Co-author: Yen-Jui Lin, PhD – Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
Co-author: Anna S. Lau, Ph.D. – UCLA
Presenter: Yazmin Meza Lazaro, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Blanche Wright, M.A. – University of California Los Angeles
Co-author: Anna S. Lau, Ph.D. – UCLA
Presenter: Stephanie H. Yu, M.A. – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Blanche Wright, M.A. – University of California Los Angeles
Co-author: Tamar Kodish, M.A. – University of California Los Angeles
Co-author: Yazmin Lazaro, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Dylan Aguirre, PhD – University of California, Los Angeles
Co-author: Anna S. Lau, Ph.D. – UCLA
Presenter: Sylvanna M. Vargas, M.P.H., Ph.D. – UCLA
Co-author: Jinshu Cui, PhD – Cigna
Co-author: Anna S. Lau, Ph.D. – UCLA
Co-author: Stanley J. Huey, PhD – University of Southern California
Co-author: Jeanne Miranda, PhD – UCLA
Co-author: Bowen Chung, MD – UCLA