Abstract
This chapter presents information on mental health issues in Latino American older adults, focusing on communication difficulties, acculturative stress, and service utilization as major challenges to the maintenance of mental health in this group; family, cultural values, and religion as strengths contributing to resilience in this group; and several issues relevant to bringing the cultural strengths of this group more effectively into the service of increasing their overall mental health.
An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0424-8_20
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Abramson, T. A., Trejo, L., & Lai, D. W. L. (2002). Culture and mental health: Providing appropriate services for a diverse older population. Generations, 26(1), 21–28.
Administration on Aging. (2001). Cultural competency. www.aoa.gov/may2001/factsheets/Cultural-Competency.html. Accessed February 1, 2002.
Applewhite, S. L. (1995). Curanderismo: Demystifying the health beliefs and practices of elderly Mexican Ameircans. Health and Social Work, 20(4), 247–254.
Applewhite, S.L., & Torres, C. (2003). Rural Latino Elders. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 41(1/2), 151–174.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.), Text Revision. Washington: American Psychiatric Association.
American Psychiatric Association. (2003, July). Mental health care and older adults: Facts and policy recommendations. http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/oldermhfact03.html. Zugegriffen: 21. April 2008.
Angel, J. L., Angel, R. J., McClellan, J. L., & Markides, K. S. (1996). Nativity, declining health, and preferences in living arrangements among elderly Mexican-Americans: Implications for long-term care. Gerontologist, 36(4), 464–473.
Antshel, K. M. (2002). Intergrating culture as a means of improving treatment adherence in the Latino population. Psychology Health & Medicine, 7(4), 437–438.
Arean, P. A., Gum, A., McCulloch, C. E., Bostrom, A., Gallagher-Thompson, D., & Thompson, L., et al. (2005). Treatment of depression in low-income older adults. Psychology & Aging, 20(4), 601–609.
Arredondo, P., Toporek, R., Brown, S. P., Jones, J., Locke, D., Sanchez, J. (1996). Operationalization of the multicultural counseling competencies. Journal of Multicultural Counseling & Development, 24(1), 42–78.
Barron, F., Hunter, A., Mayo, R., Willoughby, D. (2004). Accultration and adherence: Issues for health care providers working with clients of Mexican origin. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 15(4), 331–337.
Bartels, S. J., Coakley, E. H., & Zubritsky, C. (2004). Improving access to geriatric mental health services: A randomized trial comparing treatment engagement with integrated versus enhanced referral care for depression, anxiety, and at-risk alcohol use. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161(8), 1455–1462.
Berry, J. W., & Kim, U. (1988). Acculturation and mental health. In P. Dasen, J. W. Berry, & N. Satorius (Eds.), Health and cross-cultural psychology: Towards application (pp. 207–236). London: Sage.
Black, S. A., Goodwin, J. S., Markides, K. S. (1998). The association between chronic diseases and depressive symptomatology in older Mexican-Americans. Journals of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, 53A(3), M188–M194.
Brennan, M., Vega, M., Garcia, I., Abad, A., Friedman, M. B. (2005). Meeting the mental health needs of elderly Latinos affected by depression: Implications for outreach and service provision. Care Management Journals, 6(2), 98–106.
Callahan, C. M., Kroenke, K., Counsell, S. R., Hendrie, H. C., Perkins, A. J., Katon, et al. (2005). Treatment of depression improves physical functioning in older adults. Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 53(3), 367–373.
Carrillo, E. (2001). Assessment and treatment of the Latino patient. In A. G. Lopez & E. Carrillo (Eds.), The Latino psychiatric patient: Assessment and treatment. Washington: American Psychiatric Publishing.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2004). The state of aging and health in America. www.cdc.gov/aging. Accessed June 15, 2007.
Choi, N. G., & Gonzalez, J. M. (2005a). Barriers and contributors to minority older adults’ access to mental health treatment: Perceptions of geriatric mental health clinicians. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 44(3/4), 115–135.
Choi, N. G., & Gonzalez, J. M. (2005b). Geriatric mental health clinician’s perceptions of barriers and contributors to retention of older minorities in treatment: An exploratory study. Clinical Gerontologist, 28(3), 3–25.
Chrisman, N. J. (1977). The health seeking process: An approach to the natural history of illness. Culture Medicine & Psychiatry, 1, 351–377.
Christensen, C. (1992). Multicultural competencies in early intervention: training professionals in a pluralistic society. Infants & Young Children, 4(3), 49–63.
Collins, K. S., Hughes, D. L., Doty, M. M., Ives, B. L., Edwards, J. N., Tenney, K., et al. (2002). Diverse communities, common concerns: Assessing health care quality for minority Americans. Findings from the Commonwealth Fund 2001 Health Care Quality Survey. New York: Commonwealth Fund.
Cooper, L. A., Gonzales, J. J., Gallo, J. J., Rost, K. M., Meredith, L. S., Rubenstein, L., et al. (2003). The acceptability of treatment for depression among African-American, Hispanic, and White primary care patients. Medical Care, 41, 479–489.
Crystal, S., Sambamoorthi, U., Walkup, J. T., Akincigil, A. (2003). Diagnosis and treatment of depression in the elderly medicare population: Predictors, disparities, and trends. Journal of American Geriatrics Society, 51, 1718–1728.
Delgado, P. L., Alegria, M. Canive, J. M., Diaz, E., Escobar, J. I., Kopelowicz, A., et al. (2006). Depression and access to treatment among U.S. Hispanics: Review of literature and recommendations for policy and research. Focus: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, IV(1), 38–47.
Delgado, M. (2007). Social work with Latinos: A cultural assets paradigm. New York: Oxford University Press.
Derose, K. P., & Baker, D. W. (2000). Limited English proficiency and Latinos’ use of physician services. Medical Care Research & Review, 57(1), 76–91.
Dunlop. D. D., Song, J., Lyons, J. S., Manheim, L. M., Rowland, R. W. (2003). Racial/ethnic differences in rates of depression among preretirement adults. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1945–1952.
Falcon, L. M., & Tucker, K. L. (2000). Prevalence and correlates of depressive symptoms among Hispanic elders in Massachusetts. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, 55B(2), S108–S116.
Flores, G., Abreu, M., Schwartz, I., & Hill, M. (2000). The importance of language and culture in pediatric care: Case studies from the Latino community. Journal of Pediatrics, 137(6), 842–848.
Fraser, M. (1997). Risk and resilience in childhood. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Freimen, M. P., & Cunningham, P. J. (1997). Use of health care for the treatment of mental problems among racial/ethnic subpopulations. Medical Care Research & Review, 54, 80–101.
Gonzalez, J. (2006). Older Latinos and mental health services: Understanding access barriers. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 14(1/2), 73–93.
Gonzalez, H. M., Haan, M. N., & Hinton, L. (2001). Acculturation and the prevalence of depression in older Mexican-Americans: Baseline results of the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging. Journal of American Geriatrics, 49(7), 948–953.
Grant, B. F., Stinson, F. S., Hasin, D. S., Dawson, D. A., Chou, S. P., & Anderson, K. (2004). Immigration and lifetime prevalence of DSM-IV psychiatric disorders among Mexican-Americans and non-Hispanic Whites in the United States: Results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 1226–1233.
Greene, R. R. (2001). Resiliency: An integrated approach to practice, policy, and research. Washington, DC: NASW Press.
Guarnaccia, P. J., & Farias, P. (1988). The social meanings of nervios: A case study of a central American woman. Social Science and Medicine, 26, 1223–1231.
Hargraves, J. L., & Hadley, J. (2003). The contribution of insurance coverage and community resources to reducing racial/ethnic disparities in access to care. Health Services Research, 38(3), 809–829.
Harris, H. L. (1998). Ethnic minority elders: Issues and interventions. Educational Gerontology, 24(4), 309–324.
Hayes-Bautista, D. E., Hsu, P. Perez, A., & Gamboa, C. (2002, Fall). The ‘browning’ of the graying of America: Diversity in the elderly population and policy implications. Generations, 26(3), 15–24.
Health Care Financing Administration. (2000). Office for civil rights’ policy guidance on limited English proficient persons. http://www.hcfa.gov/medicaid/smd83100.htm. Accessed October 2, 2003.
Henry, J., Kaiser Family Foundation. (1999). The faces of Medicare. http://www.kff.org/medicare/1481-index.cfm. Accessed January 24, 2006.
Hovey, J. D. (2000). Acculturative stress, depression, and suicidal ideation in Mexican Immigrants. Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, 6(2), 134–151. http://www.kff.org/medicare/1481-index.cfm. Accessed January 24, 2002.
Jenkins, J. H. (1988). Ethnopsychiatric interpretations of schizophrenic illness: The problem of nervios within Mexican-American families. Culture, Medicine, & Psychiatry, 12, 301–329.
Jenkins, C. L., & Laditka, S. B. (1998). Double jeopardy: The challenge of providing mental health services to older persons. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 26(1), 65–74.
Juarbe, T. (1995). Access to health care for Hispanic women: A primary health care perspective. Nursing Outlook, 43(1), 23–28.
Katon, W., Von Korff, M, & Lin, E. (1997) Collaborative management to achieve depression treatment guidelines. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 58(1), 20–23.
Kenyon, G. M., & Randall, W. (2001). Narrative gerontology: An overview. In G. Kenyon, P. Clark, & B. de Vries (Eds.), Narrative gerontology. (pp. 3–18). New York: Springer.
Kirmayer, L. J. (1984). Culture, affect, and somatization, part I. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review, 21, 159–188.
Kleinman, A. (1988). The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the human condition. New York: Basic Books.
Lazarus, R. S. (1999). Stress and emotion: A new synthesis. New York: Springer.
Locke, D. C. (1992). Increasing multicultural understanding: a comprehensive world. Newbury Park: Sage.
Lopez, S. R. (2002). Mental health care for Latinos: A research agenda to improve the accessibility and quality of mental health care for Latinos. Psychiatric Services, 53, 1569–1573.
Luthar, S., & Ziegler, E. (1991). Vulnerability and competence: A review of research on resilience in childhood. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 61(1), 7–22.
Magilvy, J. K., Congdon, J. G., Martinez, R. J., Davis, R., & Averill, J. (2000). Caring for our own: Health care experiences of rural Hispanic elders. Journal of Aging Studies, 14(2), 171–191.
Malgady, R. G., & Zayas, L. H. (2001). Cultural and linguistic considerations in psychodiagnosis with Hispanics: The need for an empirically informed process model. Social Work, 46(1), 39–49.
Marin, H., Escobar, J. L., & Vega, W. A. (2006). Mental illness in Hispanics: A review of the literature. Focus: The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, IV(1), 23–37.
Miranda, M. R. (1991). Mental health services and the Hispanic elderly. In M. Sotomayor (Ed.), Empowering Hispanic families: A critical issue for the 90s. Milwaukee: Family Service America.
Miranda, J., & Cooper, L. A. (2004). Disparities in care for depression among primary care patients. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 19, 120–126.
Miranda, A. O., & Matheny, K. B. (2000). Socio-psychological predictors of acculturative stress among Latino adults. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 22(4), 306–317.
Miranda, J., Azocar, F., Organista, K. C., Dwyer, E., & Areane, P. (2003). Treatment of depression among impoverished primary care patients from ethnic minority groups. Psychiatric Services, 54(2), 219–225.
Morales, L. S., Cunningham, W. E., Brown, J. A., Lui, H., Hays, & R. D. (1999). Are Latinos less satisfied with communication by health care providers? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 14, 409–417.
National Institute of Health Office of Minority Health 1998
Norton, D. G. (1976). Working with minority populations: The dual perspective. In B. Ross, & S. K. Khinduka (Eds.), Social work practice (pp. 134–141). New York: NASW Press.
Padgett, D. K., Patrick, C., Burns, B. J., & Schlesinger, H. J. (1994). Ethnicity and the use of outpatient mental health services in a national insured population. American Journal of Public Health, 84(2), 222–226.
President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. (2003). Achieving the promise: Transforming mental health care in America: Final report. (DHHS Pub. No. SMA-03–3832). Rockville: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Ramirez, R. R. (2004, December). We the people: Hispanics in the United States – U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000 Special Reports, CENSR-18.
Rivadeneyra, R., Elderkin-Thompson, V., Silver, R. C., & Waitzkin, H. (2000). Patient centeredness in medical encounters requiring an interpreter. American Journal of Medicine, 108(6), 470–474.
Salgado de Snyder, V. N., de Jesus Diaz-Perez, M. J., & Ojeda, V. D. (2000). The prevalence of nervios and associated symptomatology among inhabitants of Mexican rural communities. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 24, 453–470.
Smart, J. F., & Smart, D. W. (1995). Acculturative stress: The experience of the Hispanic immigrant. Counseling Psychologist, 23, 25–42.
Timmins, C. L. (2002). The impact of language barriers on the health care of Latinos in the United States: A review of the literature and guidelines for practice. Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, 47(2), 80–96.
Torrez, D. J. (1998). Health and social service utilization patterns of Mexican-American older adults. Journal of Aging Studies, 12(1), 82–99.
Trevino, F., Moyer, M., Valdez, R., & Stroup-Benham, C. (1991). Health insurance coverage and utilization of health services by Mexican-Americans, mainland Puerto Ricans, and Cuban Americans. Journal of the American Medical Association, 265(2), 233–237.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2000). The Hispanic population: Census 2000 Brief. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-3.pdf. Accessed July 1, 2005.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2004). 2004 American Community Survey: Population 65 years and over. http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2004_EST_G00_S0103&-ds_name=ACS_2004_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_caller=geoselect&-state=st&-format=. Accessed June 29, 2007.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (USDHHS). (1999). Mental health: A report of the Surgeon General. Rockville: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000). Healthy People 2010: Understanding and improving health (2nd ed.). Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001). Mental health: Culture, race, ethnicity- A Supplement to mental health: A report of the surgeon general. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (USDHHS). (2003). A statistical profile of Hispanic older Americans aged 65+. Administration on aging. http://www.aoa.gov/press/fact/pdf/ss_hispanic_elderly.pdf. Accessed July 5, 2007.
Vasquez, C. I., & Clavijo, A. M. (1995). The special needs of minorities: A profile of Hispanics. In B. G. Knight, L. T. Wohlford, & J. Santos (Eds.), Mental health services for older adults: Implications for training and practice in geropsychology (pp. 93–99). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Vega, W. A., Kolody, B., & Aguilar-Gaxiola, S. (2001). Help seeking for mental health problems among Mexican-Americans. Journal of Immigrant Health, 3(3), 133–140.
Vega, W. A., Kolody, B., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Alderate, E., Catalano, R., & Carveo-Anduaga, J. (1998). Lifetime prevalence of DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders among urban and rural Mexican-Americans in California. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55, 771–778.
Vega, W. A., Kolody, B., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Catalano, R. (1999). Gaps in service utilization by Mexican-Americans with mental health problems. American Journal of Psychiatry, 156(6), 928–934.
Warda, M. (2000). Mexican-Americans’ perceptionsof culturally competent care. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 22(2), 203–224.
Wells, K., Sherbourne, C., Schoenbaum, M., Ettner, S., Duan, N., Miranda, J., et al. (2004). Five-year impact of quality improvement for depression results of a group-level randomized controlled trial. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 378–386.
Williams, C. L., & Berry, J. W. (1991). Primary prevention of acculturative stress among refugees: Application of psychological theory and practice. American Psychologist, 46, 632–641.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Applewhite, S.R., Gonzales, J.M. (2012). Psychology of Latino American Older Adults: Strengths and Challenges to Mental Health in a Shifting Society. In: Chang, E., Downey, C. (eds) Handbook of Race and Development in Mental Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0424-8_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0424-8_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-0423-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-0424-8
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)