It is important to ensure that immigrants with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) can access mental health services tailored to their language and cultural needs, but such services are not widely available. PhD candidate Nari Yoo has received the 2024 Diane Greenstein Memorial Fellowship from NYU Silver for her dissertation research exploring LEP immigrants’ experiences accessing mental health services and the role of technology in bridging service gaps.
Nari noted that a total of 25.7 million people, or 8% of the U.S. population, have LEP. Despite evidence that care aligning with a person's ethnicity and language is likely to be more effective for immigrants with LEP, it is scarce and not available in every locality due to licensure restrictions, she said. “Telemental health offers a potential solution, particularly for immigrants used to digital platforms for transnational communication,” she added.
The first part of Nari’s three-part dissertation aims to construct a comprehensive picture of the current mental health service provision landscape for Spanish and Asian speaking LEP populations. She will measure accessibility across several dimensions, including spatial, virtual, and financial access, and investigate the role played by structural xenophobia.
The second study will use a “mystery shopper” approach to assess whether linguistic barriers and practitioner bias impact access to mental health services. She will send emails from mock clients with a) foreign- or American-sounding names and b) in English or other languages to a large sample of multilingual mental health providers across the U.S. Responses will be analyzed to determine if there is preferential attention based on the mock client’s perceived ethnicity and the language they used in communication.
The final study will involve in-depth interviews with 15 immigrants with LEP who have sought telemental health services in their primary language to learn how language, culture, and technology interact to affect access to mental healthcare for this group.
Results of Nari’s dissertation project will help inform tailored mental health services to meet the needs of Hispanic and Asian immigrants with language barriers.
The Diane Greenstein Memorial Fellowship is a $5,000 award presented annually to an NYU Silver PhD candidate with an exemplary dissertation proposal. It was established in 2001 by the family, friends, and colleagues of Diane S. Greenstein, an NYU social work PhD candidate who passed away in 2000 before she was able to complete the doctoral program and defend her dissertation.