Summary
Summary: In the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused increased mental health symptoms and mental illness. Specific subgroups such as Asian Indians in the U.S. have also been subject to additional stressors due to unprecedented loss of lives in their home country and increased Asian hate due to the misperception that Asians are to be blamed for the spread of the SARS-CoV-2.
Authors examined the various factors including discrimination associated with COVID-19-related mental health symptoms among Asian Indians. They administered an online survey between May 2021 and July 2021 using convenient and snowball sampling methods to recruit Asian Indian adults. The survey included questions on mental health and the experience with unfair treatment in day-to-day life. Descriptive analysis and logistic regressions were performed.
Findings: Overall, 46% reported feeling down, depressed, or lonely and feeling nervous, tense, or worried due to the COVID-19 pandemic; 90% had received at least one dose of vaccination and 74.7% reported some form of discrimination. In the fully-adjusted logistic regression, age and general health were negatively associated with mental health symptoms. Participants who experienced discrimination were more likely to report mental health symptoms.
In this highly vaccinated group of Asian Indians discriminatory behaviors were associated with mental health symptoms suggesting the need for novel institutional level policy responses to reduce anti-Asian racism.
This study uses questions from the Multicultural Discrimination Module from the 2007 and 2009 California Health Interview Surveys (CHIS).
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