We sought to characterize the help-seeking behavior of Asian Americans living in a Southeastern community in the U.S. by examining different types of services sought, help-seeking preferences, and how demographic characteristics and mental health problems (including domestic violence) predicted these behaviors. 610 Asian Americans (mean age = 39.43 years; 59.6% female; 75% immigrants) completed an anonymous, community survey that included measures of different types of help-seeking behaviors and preferences, mental health symptoms, and exposure to domestic violence. The two most-frequently help-seeking behaviors included seeking advice from friends, family members, or relatives (66.7%), and visiting a medical doctor (46.4%). In logistic regression models, older age, sex, immigrant status and symptomatic depression predicted different types of help-seeking behaviors and preferences. Neither domestic violence experience or symptomatic anxiety significantly predicted help-seeking.
Background: Using a socioecological framework, we examined neighborhood and social stressors in concert with genetic risk for alcohol dependence in relation to externalizing behaviors, important precursors to alcohol-related problems. Methods: We used data from African American adolescents and their caregivers in the Gene, Environment, and Neighborhood Initiative, a subsample of the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study. Participants for the current analyses included 112 adolescents who reported ever having at least one full drink of alcohol. Empirical Bayes scores were used to estimate neighborhood-level violence and transitions. Multivariate models tested main effects and then interactions of family stressors, discrimination, and genetic risk with the neighborhood variables. Results: In the main effects model, adolescent externalizing behaviors were positively associated with greater family stressors, more racial discrimination experiences, and genetic liability, while neighborhood variables were nonsignificant. We found three significant interactions. Specifically, the joint effects of neighborhood violence and transitions and between these neighborhood variables and family stressors were significantly associated with externalizing behaviors. Conclusions: Our findings suggest genetic liability and complex interactions between neighborhood context and social stressors are important contributors that should be considered in the development of early prevention programs for adolescents who live in economically disadvantaged areas.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.