Improving the mental health of Asian Americans

doi:10.1136/bmjusa.02110007

BMJ, doi: 10.1136/bmjusa.02110007, (Published 20 February 2003)

Editorials

Improving the mental health of Asian Americans

Depends on training primary care clinicians and educating the community

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

From BMJ USA 2002;November:601

Asian Americans suffer a disproportionate burden of disability from mental illness. Yet compared to whites they have lessaccess to mental health services, receive poorer quality mentalhealth care, and are under-represented in mental health research.¹The September 2002 issue of the Western Journal of Medicine (www.ewjm.com)looked at ways of improving the mental health care of this fastgrowing minoritygroup.

One of the problems in looking at the evidence on the mental health of Asian Americans is that the term "Asian American" includesat least 43 different ethnic groups, which have their originsin countries as diverse as China, Japan, Laos, India, and thePhilippines. Therefore, the conclusions drawn from analyses using"Asian American" as a single ethnic category may be very differentfrom those made when specific ethnic groups areexamined.

Nevertheless, the available data suggest that the burden of mental health distress . . . [Full text of this article]