New research from the Salud America! network at UT Health San Antonio, suggests some very disturbing statistics concerning Latino youth in the United States. The studies have shown, that Latino children are the most vulnerable group besides Native Americans when it comes to mental health problems like depression.
Surveys have shown that 1 in every 3 Latino students have feelings of hopelessness and profound sadness. 15.1% of Latina high schoolers have attempted suicide, in contrast with the 9.8% of their white peers.
The Latino community is currently going through an alienation process, as government institutions target our people with nefarious purposes. It’s hard for our Latino children to feel connected to their communities, especially if the family ties have been severed by the system, these estranged children have reported having up to 8 times more thoughts of suicide, than the Latino children that have been spared by these separatist practices.
Other factors that can significantly contribute to emotional stress among Latino children in their schools and homes can be, language barriers, obesity, financial hardships, social problems, etc.
The cultural norms of the Latino community have also affected our children. Latino kids face serious challenges when it comes to getting help for mental problems, since from a very young age they are thought to act tough in the face of vulnerability, instead of reaching out and asking for help. To better understand this issue, we just have to look at the numbers. Only 8% of Latino parents claim that their child has received some type of mental health service, that’s 6% less than that of whites. Most Latinos don’t even consider something like depression to be a real thing, thus the possibilities of these conditions going untreated during a person’s lifetime increase at a startling rate.
Fortunately, this is not a problem for which we have no solution. Studies have shown that something as simple as kids having access to P.E. 3 times a week, can improve their ability to cope with anger and stress in up to 40%. The school-based bullying prevention programs have shown to reduce bullying by 25%, and bullying is a big factor to this epidemic, with 17.2% of surveyed Latino kids claiming to be victims of this malice.
This study has come from Texas and it might not be representative of the whole American based Latino community, but it is worth mentioning that around one million children of Latino background have been added to the Texas population in the last decade. It is imperative that as a community we start addressing the mental health needs of this growing population, not just for our Latino children but all American kids.