Vickie Mays

This special issue of the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), co-edited by UCLA Professor and UCLA CHPR Senior Fellow Vickie Mays, PhD, and UCLA Professor Susan Cochran, PhD, addresses improving the conditions that promote mental health and prevent mental disorders.

The papers explore innovations to infuse a public mental health agenda more thoroughly into interventions, research, and legislative and social policies. 

Topics include the impact of COVID-19 on youths and the need for public health policy advisories that focus on mental health consequences in addition to infection control; the increasing rates of suicide among Black youths, some as young as 5 years of age; the importance of primary care referrals that consider gendered differences in the expression of distress; the history of racism that continues to affect the diagnoses and treatment of African Americans; and the impact of the devastating fire in Lahaina on residents' well-being.

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• Special AJPH issue: The Social Context of Mental Health, Bereavement, and Grief 

Mays also co-authored the following articles in the issue:

• Journal Article: Society’s Role in Addressing Mental Health, Grief Crisis: A Call for Public Support 
• Journal Article: Societal Mental Health Challenges: Advocating for a National Policy Response
• Journal Article: Gendered Patterns in Manifest and Latent Mental Health Indicators Among Suicide Decedents: 2003–2020 National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)
   

Summary: The Latino population is one of the largest immigrant groups in the United States, with the majority being of Mexican descent. Whether immigrating to the U.S. is positive for the well-being of Mexican immigrants and future generations is an important question. Authors examined how nativity status and quality of life indicators relate to life satisfaction among foreign-born and U.S.-born Mexican descent Latinos living in California. Participants were from the California Quality of Life Survey, a population-based mental health survey of the California population. 

Findings: Multiple regressions examining sociodemographic and indicators of life satisfaction found higher life satisfaction among the foreign-born compared to U.S.-born: females and individuals reporting more social support, absence of frequent distress, and better physical health. Life satisfaction was lower for U.S.-born Mexicans than for Mexican immigrants. Research, interventions, and policies are needed for mental health equity that address this lack of well-being in U.S.-born Mexican Latinos.

This study uses 2007 and 2012–2012 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) data.

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• Journal Article: The American Dream: Is Immigration Associated with Life Satisfaction for Latinos of Mexican Descent?

​Summary: Racial/ethnic minorities, especially black Americans, suffered a disproportionate impact from COVID-19 compared with others. COVID-19 has had a particularly deleterious effect on black children and adolescents. Their COVID-19 mortality rates are twice as high as those seen in white children and adolescents. Many federal data sets are currently missing key demographic and social disadvantage measurements essential for equitable data-driven health decisions. Researchers address two data equity challenges as they affect black children’s lives: missing data and generational effects of data inequities in black children.

Findings: Researchers conclude that our data infrastructure must also have the capacity to link health and social determinant data together to detect and respond to the accumulating negative consequences on the horizon for black children and adolescents. It is imperative to ask and monitor who controls and produces data. Findings show the critical need for a COVID-19 public health data governance structure in which data produced at the state and federal levels can better serve as the roadmap for risk reduction. 

 

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• Journal Article: The Accumulation of Disadvantage: Black Children, Adolescents, and COVID-19 Data Inequity

Summary: Precision public health offers the promise of improving health equity by delivering the “right intervention at the right time, every time to the right population.” But the COVID-19 pandemic underscored how far the United States is from delivering on that promise, especially for marginalized urban and rural American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) populations.

Findings: Using Urban Indian Health Institute data from January 2020 to January 2021, authors compile a report card measuring completeness of state and federal reporting of race and COVID-19 data on the AIAN population, with a rating of D-minus for the U.S. overall. Eighteen states earned A to B-minus grades; 16 earned C-plus to D-minus grades; 16 earned F grades. Authors then discuss the failure to collect relevant data on AIAN populations, barriers to data dissemination about the AIAN population, and less than optimal use of data to effectively inform public policy regarding AIAN health.

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• Journal Article: Data Equity in American Indian/Alaska Native Populations: Respecting Sovereign Nations’ Right to Meaningful and Usable COVID-19 Data