Title: Culture & Society's Influence on Mental Health Pasadena Villa
Headings: Culture & Society’s Influence on Mental Health
Culture & Society’s Influence on Mental Health
The Scope of Mental Health Disorders among Cultural Groups
Sources:

Content: A 2010 study published in Transcultural Psychiatry investigated the understanding of mental illness and perceptions of mental health services between ethnic groups. The researchers signed up 25 African American, Latino, and Euro-American inner-city residents diagnosed with a mental illness and living in Hartford Connecticut. The scientists collected ethnographic data for 18 months. The researchers found that Euro-Americans held a disease-oriented perspective of mental illness and were willing to seek the advice and counsel from mental health professionals. African-Americans and Latino participants interpreted the behavioral, emotional and cognitive problems of mental illness quite differently; participants in these two groups were critical of mental health services. Some participants described their expectations and experiences regarding mental health stigmas. Euro-American participants were aware that having a mental illness posed a risk for social rejection but these subjects did not focus on these stigmas. African Americans did describe a great deal of stigma in their narrative accounts. Many of these participants considered severe mental illness to be private family business.