Many may think seeking mental health treatment is straightforward. At Palo Alto High School, students have access to the Wellness Center, where all they have to do to get support is open the door and walk in. However, for many, accessing support is not that simple.

For minorities, barriers like the longstanding stigma surrounding mental health treatment prevent them from receiving the help they need, according to Allcove Youth Advisory Group member and Palo Alto High School senior Jeremy Peng.

“Especially [within] more vulnerable populations where mental health is a risk, if you have mental health [struggles], you’re separated and no one will talk to you,” Peng said.

Yifan Wang, Paly’s Asian Americans for Community Involvement therapist, hypothesizes that immigrant and refugee parents may not see mental health struggles as worth addressing because they do not seem serious compared to the challenges of being an immigrant.

“They [parents] would use their experiences, for example, somewhere as a refugee and came to this country without any resources, so the only way they can survive is to be really tough,” Wang said. “They have some good learning from their own experiences, but there’s always room to grow to be able to understand the younger generation better.”

Cruz Norte, a Native American and Mexican Paly student, shared his experience with how mental health is perceived in his community.

“It [mental health] is viewed as something you can’t really talk about because they’re trying to hide it and it’s just weird and embarrassing and you don’t want to be different,” Norte said. “It’s hard breaking away from what you’ve known for so long.”

According to Ripal Shah, a psychiatrist and Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford’s Race and Mental Health Lab, even those who can personally overcome the stigma around seeking treatment may struggle with actually accessing it due to a lack of mental health literacy.

“Knowing where to look, having access, having assistance with getting help — sometimes in minority communities, there’s not very many who would be able to help in that domain as easily as in the majority culture,” Shah said.

“Most of what we get trained with in medical school and in residence is based on the average patient and the average patient in the United States and Europe is white, Caucasian. So we’re operating our doses and drugs many times on the metabolism of a Caucasian person.”

—Ripal Shah, psychiatrist and Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford’s Race and Mental Health Lab

For some students, like senior Ashley Qiu, the accessibility of mental health support through Paly’s Wellness Center helped to overcome these barriers. 

“If not for the services that the Wellness Center provides and encourages students to seek out, it would be less common or more difficult for people who are ethnic minorities to go seek out that help because it’s not part of their tradition,” Qiu said. 

Despite the availability of these resources, not all students have had positive experiences with the services provided by Paly. 

Carter Blair, a member of Paly’s Black Student Union, shared some of the negative experiences other Black students faced at Paly. 

“I’ve heard many stories from my friends who have experienced racial discrimination at Paly and they feel that the administration has handled it poorly,” Blair said. “That included not any follow-up for emotional counseling or checking in for mental health.”

In addition to other barriers, deep-rooted inequality in the medical field can create difficulties for minorities who access treatment, according to Shah. 

“Most of what we get trained with in medical school and in residence is based on the average patient and the average patient in the United States and Europe is white, Caucasian,” Shah said. “So we’re operating our doses and drugs many times on the metabolism of a Caucasian person.”

Though there is greater awareness surrounding the need for more diversity in the medical field, according to Duy Nguyen, the program manager at the Palo Alto Allcove site, this change is fairly recent and much more research is needed to adequately address the lack of information around the health of minorities.

“There’s still a lack of understanding around what mental health services are. I think there’s still a lot of terms being thrown out like, ‘This person’s crazy.’”

—Duy Nguyen, program manager at Palo Alto Allcove site

“In terms of different cultures, people from different countries, the youth whose parents are from different countries, the field of psychology isn’t as developed, so they don’t quite understand it,” Nguyen said.

According to Shah, even genetic slight differences negatively impact minority mental health.

“Vitamin D deficiency can cause quite a bit of mental health disturbance,” Shah said. “I often check labs, particularly for minority patients, because the risk of Vitamin D deficiency in ethnic minorities can be much, much higher than it is in Caucasians.”

Peng described the efforts of Allcove, an organization with centers in the Bay Area that focuses on bringing low-cost mental health support to youth, to destigmatize mental health so that all teens can feel comfortable at Allcove. 

“In minority populations especially, a lot of families feel it [mental illness] is shameful, or that they should hide it, or that it doesn’t exist, it’s just a phase and it will move on without any help,” Peng said. “Our job is to help convince the parents that our service is safe for your child.”

Nguyen elaborated on the goals of Allcove and its focus on minorities. 

“If you look at the statistics, minorities and people of color are less likely to engage in mental health services,” Nguyen said. “It has gotten better over the years, but there is still that stigma and it is a struggle that we [Allcove] are continuing to work on breaking down.”

“They [parents] would use their experiences, for example, somewhere as a refugee and came to this country without any resources, so the only way they can survive is to be really tough. They have some good learning from their own experiences, but there’s always room to grow to be able to understand the younger generation better.”

—Yifan Wang, Paly’s Asian Americans for Community Involvement therapist

Though organizations like Allcove are working to help minorities access mental health care, Blair acknowledged the work that still needs to be done, especially at Paly. 

“I think that it’s important to keep in mind all of the things that have happened in the past few years that have specifically affected the Black community,” Blair said. “Maybe the mental health of the Black community, specifically at Paly, is being affected by these things.”

Nguyen elaborated on the importance of knowledge in combating stigma. 

“There’s still a lack of understanding around what mental health services are,” Nguyen said. “I think there’s still a lot of terms being thrown out like, ‘This person’s crazy.’”  

Shah said she believes community leaders are a crucial part of this change. 

“I think a lot of the future is going to lie in religious leaders and community leaders,” Shah said. “People will need to feel more comfortable knowing that it [seeking mental health treatment] is an option, knowing that their priest or their aunt or uncle won’t criticize them for seeking mental health care.”   

Resources for mental health