Risk Factor of Asian Americans’ Mental Health: A Psychological Review

Abstract

This article is an examination of the risk factors of Asian Americans’ Mental Health and whether they are more prone to depression. The term “Asian American” and “Asian or Pacific Islander American” include over 25 groups in the US and make up a major proportion of the immigrants in the 21st century. Researchers and scholars have put in an arduous effort to analyze their mental states as it is essential to the American population. This article is going to discuss perspectives such as cultural differences, social support and discrimination, and family origin and education. Due to cultural differences, some Asian Americans might receive indigenous treatments such as herbal medicines in Chinese Medicine, and their diagnosis could also be different compared to the Western model of major depressive disorder in DSM-V. They also tend to have less social support, more stigma in their family, and face discrimination in educational or work settings. To conclude, due to the hardship of collecting data from the survey and experiments, future scholars or social workers should be more considerate of patients’ ethnic backgrounds and attain more information on the treatments they have received.