Madison Zaldivar is a psychology major at the City College making strides in mental health research. As a City College Fellow and the Opportunities in Research and Creative Arts (ORCA) program this Summer, Zaldivar is contributing to Dr. Adriana Espinosa’s Applied Research in the Health and Adaptation of Minority Populations (ARHAMP) lab. One of ARHAMP’s core missions is looking at the intersection of social, environmental, psychological, and behavioral determinants of health disparities.
Zaldivar’s research aims to understand help-seeking behaviors amongst South Asian college students and why some may choose to forgo seeking mental health care services such as talk therapy. Her goal is to provide solutions to barriers that keep them from obtaining treatment.
“South Asian individuals are overlooked within the research, so there’s not a lot of information about them,” said Zaldivar. The South Asian community has grown in the United States, with an 81% increase over a ten year period according to South Asian Americans Leading Together. She explained that though they are overlooked in research and there is a gap in coverage, South Asians are less likely to utilize formal mental health services, with mood and anxiety disorders being highly prevalent in the community.
According to a Cambridge study, Prevalence of mental disorders in South Asia: A systematic review of reviews, a meta-analysis of 25 primary studies showed a prevalence of 16% for depression and 12% for anxiety among the general adult population in South Asia. The study showed that 42.7% of university students in Pakistan reported experiencing depression while 75% of South Asian individuals affected by mental health disorders do not receive treatment.
Although the study points at treatment gaps, Zaldivar explains that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not seeking help, but are looking towards their family for support.
“ It’s very collectivist, so very family oriented and close knit. A lot of stuff stays within the family and stays within the community,” she said in relation to South Asian cultural standards.
A 2020 study looking into mental health issues within South Asian immigrant communities in the UK and Canada, suggests that stigmatization of mental health issues may keep individuals from seeking help. Depression, as the study states, is the most common of all mental health diagnoses among South Asians in the UK. In one UK study, it revealed that social stigmatization prevented individuals from seeking professional help for their older relatives experiencing dementia.
In the same study, it highlights South Asian immigrants in Canada presenting their symptoms as somatic rather than depressive symptoms to their primary care doctors. Because of these misdiagnoses in care, it deepens the barriers to proper treatment for their mental health.
In understanding this, Zaldivar aims to create a project that explores the effectiveness of different forms of mental health care practices that utilize community structures within South Asian culture.
“I really wanted to develop a project that showed formal mental health services – going to a psychiatrist or a psychologist – isn’t the only way to deal with emotional problems,” she said. “You can talk to your family, you can talk to your friends and I think that they’re an example of that.”
Zaldivar references pamphlets as a good starting point to get the conversation going around mental health care within the community. “ I think if families had a pamphlet that said ‘if your child comes to you under distress or with an emotional problem, these are some things that you can say, things that you can ask,’” she said.
In working on her project, Zaldivar has had to look inward to question why South Asian college students may not want to seek therapy services.
”I found myself having a lot of my own personal biases. I’m not South Asian and I grew up in America, so I’m like, yeah I’ll go to therapy,” she said. Born and raised in New York City to a Jewish mother and Cuban father, Zaldivar’s outlook towards mental health services differs from South Asian college students. As a researcher, she realized in order to provide proper resources for them, she would have to place herself in their shoes.
“ I’m asking the question, ‘wait, why don’t they want to do that?’ I didn’t want to approach it from a way of saying ‘they should’, but rather just learning more about them and taking this experience to do so.”
Looking ahead, Zaldivar aims to further dispel bias within her research projects through her participation in the Credentialed Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor Trainee (CASAC-T) education program this September. The CASAC program equips psychology students with the tools to properly assess and treat patients with alcohol and substance abuse problems.
“Oftentimes these individuals are also going through a lot of financial problems and possibly homelessness. I think that the certificate is really pushing students to eliminate biases which has been a huge part of my journey studying psychology,” she says.
Leandra is an early career journalist with an M.A. in Arts & Culture Reporting and Documentary Filmmaking from The Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. With experience reporting for community news outlets such as The Riverdale Press and The Mott Haven Herald, Leandra currently writers for CUNY academic publications The RICC and Research in Focus.