(PS10-43) The Effects of Acculturation and Mental Health Stigma on Asian American Caregivers’ Endorsement of Barriers to Youth Mental Health Services

Abstract Text: Asian Americans are the most rapidly expanding racial ethnic group in the United States and expected to become the largest immigrant group by 2055. Despite this, they do not receive adequate mental health services, reflecting a disparity that extends to Asian American youth. Acculturation, defined as a socialization to the cultural norms, values, and practices of a specific culture, affects the extent to which Asian Americans prescribe to host and origin cultures, with implications for help-seeking behaviors. Mental health stigma, or negative evaluations of mental health, is affected by cultural norms and a known barrier to behavior change (Li., 2021). Studies have found that acculturation and mental health stigma affect help seeking behaviors. However, the relative contributions of these variables as they relate to caregiver-reported barriers for youth mental health services is not well understood despite their implications for addressing current service use disparities. Using data from a quantitative study of barriers to mental health service use for Asian American youth, we aim to bridge this gap by examining the effects of acculturation and mental health stigma on barriers to service use for youth mental health needs among Asian American caregivers. We predict that caregivers’ acculturation to culture of origin and to Asian American culture would be associated with higher levels of barriers, and that acculturation to the dominant European-American culture would be associated with lower levels of barriers. We additionally predict that mental health stigma would also be associated with higher levels of barriers above and beyond the effects of acculturation. 

Participants (N=114; M_age=39.05, 54% female) were Asian American caregivers of children ages 6-17 residing in the U.S. recruited via Prolific and community outreach. Data were collected from August 2023 to January 2024. We used the Asian American Multidimensional Acculturation Scale (Chung et al., 2004) to assess levels of acculturation to one’s culture of origin, to Asian American cultures, and to the dominant European-American culture; the Internalized Stigma of Mental Illness Inventory (Ritsher, 1975) to assess caregivers’ internalized stigma surrounding mental health disorders, and an adapted version of the Barriers to Mental Health Treatment Questionnaire for Latinx caregivers (Vázquez et al., 2022) to assess structural, perceptual, cultural, and trauma-specific barriers to care.

Planned analyses include multiple linear regression models with overall barriers score and barrier domain scores regressed on acculturation to culture of origin, Asian American culture, dominant western culture, and mental health stigma. Findings are expected to demonstrate the salience of acculturation and mental health stigma in shaping caregivers’ perceived barriers to youth mental health supports. This project is directly relevant to the conference theme as it engages members of the Asian American community, who have been historically underrepresented from clinical research, to better understand the factors getting in the way of meeting youth mental health needs.