-
Beyond Translation: Why Behavioral Health Systems Need Bicultural Leadership and a Culturally Humble Workforce
Hispanic Heritage Month allows us to honor and celebrate Latino and Hispanic histories and cultures. But it should also challenge behavioral health organizations to ask a harder question: Have we evolved beyond merely translating words to truly understanding people? Language access is vital....
-
Sawubona Healing Circles and the Path Toward Collective Healing
This article explores the pervasive impact of intergenerational racialized trauma and emphasizes the importance of healing spaces for marginalized groups. It examines how systemic socialization and traumatic interactions within family systems contribute to emotional suffering and behavioral...
-
An Ecological Perspective on Policing and Behavioral Health
The ecological model helps us understand how people’s environments—from family systems to institutions like policing—shape behavioral health outcomes. Environmental determinants help explain how systemic and structural conditions contribute to mental health disparities. This article examines...
-
The Value of Being Seen: Acknowledging the Importance of Shared Identities and Lived Experiences
It is a well-known fact that our traditional mental health care system has experienced a strain over the past six years. Not only are there ongoing needs for services across communities, but also an ongoing staffing crisis that impedes the successful delivery of those services. Mental health...
-
Between Two Homelands: The Mental Health Burden and Strength of South Asian Immigrants
My father is fluent in English. He has two master’s degrees and a law degree from India. He can debate policy, analyze contracts, rattle off political science, and write with precision. But when he came to America in the early 1980s, he learned that fluency was not the same thing as...
-
The Overlapping Roots of Mental Health Disparities: Poverty, Racism, and Trauma as Social Determinants
Mental health cannot be fully understood — or effectively addressed — without considering the powerful forces that shape people’s everyday lives. Poverty, racism, and trauma are more than just challenges individuals face; they are deeply embedded social determinants of mental health that...
-
Breaking the Cycle: How Cultural Competence in Behavioral Health Can Improve Early Intervention for Black and Brown Youth
Cultural competence in behavioral health refers to the ability of health care providers to understand, communicate with, and effectively interact with individuals across cultures. It includes being aware of the cultural factors that influence an individual's experiences and worldview, including...
-
Therapy is for “Other People”: Why Many South Asian Parents Dismiss Mental Health Support
In many South Asian communities, mental health remains a stigmatized topic, leading individuals to suppress their struggles rather than seek help. This cultural undertone often results in both parents and children enduring mental health issues in silence, perpetuating a cycle of unaddressed...
-
Black Women and Suicide: The Silent Crisis and Its Aftermath on Families
Suicide among Black women is a heartbreaking and complex issue that has often been overlooked in public health discussions. Despite the cultural narratives of strength and resilience surrounding Black women, they face mental health challenges that are deeply rooted in historical and social...
-
Analysis of Social Media Language Using AI Models Predicts Depression Severity for White Americans, but Not Black Americans
Researchers were able to predict depression severity for white people, but not for Black people using standard language-based computer models to analyze Facebook posts. Words and phrases associated with depression, such as first-person pronouns and negative emotion words, were around three times...
