Category: Culture / Ethnicity / Race
Michelle Alto, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Baker Center for Children and Families
Boston, Massachusetts
Anna Lau, PhD
Professor
UCLA
Los Angeles, California
Kelsie Okamura, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Implementation Researcher
The Baker Center for Children and Families
Boston, Massachusetts
Lisa Jim
Senior Research Program Coordinator Center for Indigenous Health
Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
Amanda Nguyen, M.A., Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
University of Virginia
Earlysville, Virginia
Michelle Alto, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
Baker Center for Children and Families
Boston, Massachusetts
Sylvanna Vargas, M.P.H., Ph.D. (she/her/hers)
UCLA
Los Angeles, California
There are well-documented disparities in access to mental health care across populations and contexts. In the United States, rates of mental health care utilization among African American, Latinx, Indigenous American, and Native Hawaiian populations are significantly lower than that of White Americans (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Globally, contextual and sociopolitical factors can also impact access to mental health care, contributing, for example, to up to 75% of people with mental health needs not accessing care in Ukraine (Weissbecker, Khan, Kondakava, Poole, & Cohen, 2017). Access to quality evidence-based care is particularly limited for minority populations (Wang, Berglund, & Kessler, 2000). Many evidence-based interventions were developed within Western cultural models, which has called the acceptability and effectiveness of these interventions with different populations into question (Hall et al., 2021; Hays, 2009). In response, there has been growing work in the field of cultural adaptation to explore how to make interventions more relevant effective in different populations, as well as in the field of implementation science to explore how to improve access to these interventions (Kataoka, Novins, & Santiago, 2010).
This symposium brings together research on the cultural adaptation and implementation of evidence-based interventions with diverse populations. Presentation 1 uses concept mapping to assess barriers to the implementation of The Ho’ouna Pono Curriculum, a culturally grounded substance use prevention program developed and tested on rural Hawai’i Island. Presentation 2 describes the development and piloting of Family Spirit Strengths, a home-visiting adaptation of the transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral intervention the Common Elements Treatment Approach (CETA) for Indigenous American mothers and early childhood caregivers. Presentation 3 presents the iterative development of a brief psychosocial support adaptation of CETA for Ukrainian veterans and their family members, and the effectiveness outcomes from its pilot trial. Presentation 4 highlights key points and lessons learned in the adaptation and training of the Behavioral and Emotional Wellness cognitive behavioral toolkit, designed to disseminate evidence-based strategies to clinicians working with racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse youth and families. Presentation 5 outlines the development of culturally adapted modules for the Safe Alternatives for Teens and Youth-Acute suicide risk management intervention for immigrant communities of color. Overall, these studies highlight the importance of culturally informed approaches to intervention development, adaptation, and implementation to address disparities in access to evidence-based mental health care.