The U.S. is grappling with a severe shortage of mental health professionals. But the situation is particularly dire for some minority communities, where barriers of language and culture can make it hard to seek and get help.
Most good mental health care requires subtle, intimate conversation with patients. But too often, mental health experts say, professionals lack the language skills needed to serve those who struggle with English.
"It's difficult to trust that translation will capture nuances in the soul-baring process of mental health treatment," said Sita Diehl, director of state policy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
The greatest mental health needs are often in remote, rural areas with scattered populations.
The biggest shortages, according to an April 2014 assessment by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), were in South Dakota, Wisconsin, Alaska, Arizona and Oklahoma, which have only a quarter or less of the psychiatrists, counselors and therapists they need.
Culture and language barriers have complicated the issue in places like Alaska, which saw a string of suicides this fall among Alaska Natives, and New Mexico and Arizona, which have large numbers of Spanish and Navajo speakers.
California, where nearly one in five residents had trouble with English, has created its own system of assessing shortages and is encouraging more bilingual therapists, while nonprofits have taken the lead in other states like New Mexico, Ohio and Texas.
Among states for which data were available, the supply of mental health professionals was greatest in Rhode Island, which had no statewide shortage, and New Hampshire, which had 95 percent of the professionals it needed. (Vermont lacked sufficient data to calculate a statewide number, but did not show a significant shortage.)
[For more of this story, written by Tim Henderson, go to http://www.adn.com/article/201...l-help-mental-health]
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