4 minute read
OP-ED: Solving Colorado’s Asian American mental health epidemic
Solving Colorado’s Asian American Mental Health Epidemic By Mary Jeneverre Schultz
For many, the COVID-19 pandemic is long in the past: schools are back to in-person teaching, employees are returning to offices, and venues can once again operate at max capacity. But for Colorado’s Asian American community, harmful, and in some cases, life-threatening aftershocks remain. The COVID-era elicited a significant spike in hate crimes and racism against our community both state and nationwide. According to Fran Campbell, CEO of Colorado’s Asian Chamber of Commerce, at the height of the pandemic Colorado’s Asian population were spit on, insulted, had rocks hurled at them, and even pushed into traffic.
Advertisement
Similar trends were seen nationwide. In 2020, Asian American hate crimes jumped nearly 150% in the nation’s largest cities, and nearly 4,000 separate hate crime incidents against Asian Americans were documented.
This wide-scale violence has left scars both above and beneath the surface. A report released over the summer found that nearly three million Asian Americans are struggling with their mental health. Compounding this mental health epidemic is the fact that Asian Americans face community-specific barriers to accessing mental health treatment.
Nearly a third of Asian Americans do not speak fluent English, making it more difficult to obtain culturally competent psychiatric and therapeutic services. Cost is also a significant barrier to treatment, as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are more likely to lack health insurance than white Americans.
A cultural stigma against acknowledging and treating mental health issues is also heavily present in the Asian American community, with many who suffer refraining from talking about their mental health struggles with loved ones due to shame and guilt. Many in our community view mental illness to be a personal failing or weakness. Too many first-generation Asian immigrants fail to recognize that mental health is just as important as physical health, and just like a physical ailment, mental health
concerns often require a visit to a healthcare professional.
In fact, Asian Americans, especially the first generation, are the ethnic group least likely to seek mental health treatment from a trained professional.
Unfortunately, in Colorado, there are barriers to mental health treatment that extend far beyond cultural stigma. Complicated, costly, and time-consuming mental health care processes often prevent those seeking treatment from accessing it. Take step therapy, more commonly known as “fail first,” for example. When a patient meets with their physician and describes their symptoms, the physician may have a specific medication in mind that they think will best treat the patient’s condition. However, if the drug is new on the market or not the cheapest, generic version, the patient must undergo “step therapy,” meaning that they must sample two or three generic versions of the drug before their insurance will cover the one their provider recommends. Since it takes 1-2 months to Step therapy, or “fail first,” is when a patient must sample two or three generic versions of a drug before insurance will cover the one their provider recommends. determine if a psychiatric medication is effective, sampling 2 or 3 drugs as a part of step therapy means it may be as many as six months before a mentally ill patient is put on the right treatment. Though progress was made when step therapy legislation was amended in the 2022 Colorado Legislature to drive down costs for psychiatric treatments, there is still room for improvement. And this improvement is desperately needed to remedy Colorado’s Asian American mental health crisis. Improving the mental health of those in our community must start with facilitating access to hospitable and timely care. Agency of the physician to choose the appropriate medication is the key to this positive shift. Let’s make mental health care more accessible for all in 2023 by having more conversations about mental health, and reforming harmful barriers to treatment such as step therapy. Lawmakers, you know what to do in the upcoming legislative session.