Mental illnesses have now overtaken cardiovascular disease as the biggest burden on China’s health care system and the country does not have enough psychiatric health providers to accommodate the enormous patient population, according to an expert at UMass Medical School.
Additionally, statistics have shown that Chinese-Americans have significantly lower diagnosis and treatment rates for mental disorders than those of other ethnicities, said Xiaoduo Fan, MD, MPH, associate professor of psychiatry.
“It is imperative that health care providers in China and the United States be prepared to combat this disparity in number and effective treatment solutions,” said Dr. Fan, director of the Psychotic Disorders at UMass Memorial Medical Center.
Fan will host the Global Mental Health: A Chinese Perspective symposium on Wednesday night and Thursday morning at the UMMS and lead discussions exploring the roots of mental health challenges faced by the Chinese population in China, America and the world. Fan also intends to use the event to create a local network for both mental health care and research collaboration.
The Wednesday event will be held from 6 to 9:30 p.m. in S4-102, and focus on why treatment rates are low, how this population is often overlooked, and will launch the creation of a local health network and research collaboration to aid Chinese-Americans in the fight against mental illness.
“This is a great opportunity for people in the greater Boston area who have the resources to get together and come up with something in terms of serving the local Asian and Chinese community,” Fan said, adding that he hopes to extend the effort to experts throughout the UMass system.
On Thursday morning, Fan and other experts will take part in a case-related conference call entitled Chinese Culture and Psychosis. The hour-long call, which begins at 8 a.m., will be held in S4-325 and will consist of a live video feed between experts at UMass Memorial Medical Center and their counterparts at the Shanghai Mental Health Center.
The goal of the conference call will include topics such as the interplay of Chinese and American culture, stigma, religion and psychiatric diagnostic schemes, and critical discussion surrounding a psychiatric case presentation involving Chinese culture.
