Practice Innovations, Vol 8(2), Jun 2023, 116-130; doi:10.1037/pri0000204
Research has extensively documented mental health disparities negatively impacting ethnic and racial minorities living in the United States. With respect to Latinos, such disparities are marked by less access to care and poorer quality of mental health treatment. While studies on Latino mental health have found differences in mental health service utilization among ethnic subgroups and different generations of Latinos, empirical data examining specific attitudes and barriers to mental health treatment among different generations of Latinos are more limited. To address this gap in the extant literature, this study sought to elucidate associations among Latino generational status, mental health service utilization, psychological distress, and barriers to mental health treatment. Within a sample of 218 participants (first-generation n = 67; second-generation n = 86; third-generation n = 65), first-generation Latino immigrants evidenced the lowest rate of mental health service utilization and reported greater linguistic and structural knowledge barriers. Of note, first-generation Latino immigrants reported lower perceived social stigma of mental health services when age at migration was considered. Latinos who immigrated to the United States at age 18 or older reported the lowest perceived social stigma. Implications of these findings for research, mental health service providers, and mental health policy are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)