Eunice C. Wong

Effects of Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Trainings Conducted Under the California Mental Health Services Authority: An Evaluation of the National Alliance on Mental Illness Adult Programs

This study evaluated three National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) programs aimed at reducing mental illness stigma and discrimination among adult audiences.

Effects of contact-based mental illness stigma reduction programs: age, gender, and Asian, Latino, and White American differences

PurposeMental illness stigma disproportionately affects help seeking among youth, men, and ethnic minorities. As part of a comprehensive statewide initiative to reduce mental illness stigma and discrimination in California, a broad set of contact-based educational programs were widely disseminated. This study examined whether the effects of contact-based educational programs varied depending on the age, gender, and race-ethnicity of participants.MethodsParticipants (N = 4122) attended a contact-based educational program that was delivered as part of the statewide initiative to reduce mental illness stigma and discrimination. Self-administered surveys assessing beliefs, attitudes, and intentions toward mental illnesses and treatment were conducted immediately before and after participation in contact-based educational programs.ResultsParticipant age, gender, and race-ethnicity significantly moderated pre–post changes in mental illness stigma. Although all groups exhibited significant pre–post changes across most of the stigma domains assessed, young adults, females, and Asian and Latino American participants reported larger improvements compared to older adults, males, and Whites, respectively.ConclusionsFindings suggest that contact-based educational programs can achieve immediate reductions in mental illness stigma across a variety of sociodemographic groups and may particularly benefit young adults and racial–ethnic minorities. Further research is needed to assess whether contact-based educational programs can sustain longer-term changes and aid in the reduction of disparities in mental illness stigma and treatment.

A Community-Partnered Approach to Developing Church-Based Interventions to Reduce Health Disparities Among African-Americans and Latinos

Faith and public health partnerships offer promise to addressing health disparities, but examples that incorporate African-Americans and Latino congregations are lacking. Here we present results from developing a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational faith and public health partnership to address health disparities through community-based participatory research (CBPR), focusing on several key issues: (1) the multi-layered governance structure and activities to establish the partnership and identify initial health priority (obesity), (2) characteristics of the congregations recruited to partnership (n = 66), and (3) the lessons learned from participating congregations’ past work on obesity that informed the development of a multi-level, multi-component, church-based intervention. Having diverse staff with deep ties in the faith community, both among researchers and the primary community partner agency, was key to recruiting African-American and Latino churches. Involvement by local health department and community health clinic personnel provided technical expertise and support regarding health data and clinical resources. Selecting a health issue—obesity—that affected all subgroups (e.g., African-Americans and Latinos, women and men, children and adults) garnered high enthusiasm among partners, as did including some innovative aspects such as a text/e-mail messaging component and a community mapping exercise to identify issues for advocacy. Funding that allowed for an extensive community engagement and planning process was key to successfully implementing a CBPR approach. Building partnerships through which multiple CBPR initiatives can be done offers efficiencies and sustainability in terms of programmatic activities, though long-term infrastructure grants, institutional support, and non-research funding from local foundations and health systems are likely needed.