Mind the gap: Disaggregating mental health data in the AAPI community and establishing mental health equity
Poster Number
17C
Format
Poster Presentation (Research Day, April 30)
Faculty Mentor Name
Marylou Bagus-Hansen
Faculty Mentor Department
Undergraduate Education
Abstract/Artist Statement
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) is an identifying umbrella term that encompasses an estimated fifty different ethnic groups speaking over one hundred languages. Nevertheless, research conducted on this broad community often addresses the population monolithically, thereby obscuring the profound heterogeneity and historically-produced unique experiences present within it. As interrelated, emerging concepts, intergenerational and historical trauma are particularly relevant to the invisible heterogeneity of the AAPI community with particular regard to the mental health field. For example, mental health research that assesses the AAPI population does not differentiate between the distinct traumatic psychological legacies of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and U.S. imperialism in the Philippines when attempting to elucidate the state of AAPIs’ mental health. As a California Civic Action Fellow serving at Little Manila Rising, a Filipinx-based non-profit organization committed to bringing multi-faceted equity to the historically disenfranchised area of South Stockton, I examined the power of group storytelling as a narrative reclamation device in the context of intergenerational trauma for the AAPI community. How do data and narrative disaggregation empower members of the notably heterogeneous AAPI community? To what extent is mental health equity tied to a paradigm shift towards data disaggregation and community-driven research? Is the widespread implementation of a culturally-informed mental healthcare model possible without the intentional recognition of within-group differences present among AAPIs? Through unstructured interviews with AAPI mental health and research experts and my work with AAPI youth at Little Manila Rising, I hope to shed some light on those aforestated lines of inquiry.
Location
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
Start Date
30-4-2022 10:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2022 12:00 PM
Full paper
Mind the gap: Disaggregating mental health data in the AAPI community and establishing mental health equity
Information Commons, William Knox Holt Memorial Library and Learning Center
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) is an identifying umbrella term that encompasses an estimated fifty different ethnic groups speaking over one hundred languages. Nevertheless, research conducted on this broad community often addresses the population monolithically, thereby obscuring the profound heterogeneity and historically-produced unique experiences present within it. As interrelated, emerging concepts, intergenerational and historical trauma are particularly relevant to the invisible heterogeneity of the AAPI community with particular regard to the mental health field. For example, mental health research that assesses the AAPI population does not differentiate between the distinct traumatic psychological legacies of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and U.S. imperialism in the Philippines when attempting to elucidate the state of AAPIs’ mental health. As a California Civic Action Fellow serving at Little Manila Rising, a Filipinx-based non-profit organization committed to bringing multi-faceted equity to the historically disenfranchised area of South Stockton, I examined the power of group storytelling as a narrative reclamation device in the context of intergenerational trauma for the AAPI community. How do data and narrative disaggregation empower members of the notably heterogeneous AAPI community? To what extent is mental health equity tied to a paradigm shift towards data disaggregation and community-driven research? Is the widespread implementation of a culturally-informed mental healthcare model possible without the intentional recognition of within-group differences present among AAPIs? Through unstructured interviews with AAPI mental health and research experts and my work with AAPI youth at Little Manila Rising, I hope to shed some light on those aforestated lines of inquiry.