[UPDATE: Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University has responded to this report. Please take a look.]
Family Services of Montgomery County, in Pennsylvania, has just released an extensive report on the social and healthcare needs of the local Indian community. The 92-page report was written by Larry Fiebert, who conducted numerous interviews, and can be seen here: download report.pdf
The report notes that Asians as a whole are the largest minority group in the county, but that their access to social services is severely inadequate and that the reality contradicts the impression most locals have of them being a model minority.
According to Fiebert (who also looked at the Korean community), there are 14 areas that need to be addressed by the Indian-American community as it continues to expand. A sampling:
- "There are growing numbers of Asian Indian elderly individuals who current need and will increasingly need as they age a variety of social and healthcare services and supports in order to remain independent. They often do not receive these services for a variety of reasons including, limited English language skills, stigma in receiving services, lack of awareness of available services, lack of transportation, lack of culturally and linguistically competent staffing at existing service providers."
- "Mental Health, work worries, family and school stress issues are a growing problem to many in the Indian community, however, due to the stigma that is attached to mental health within the Indian community few Asian Indians seek mental health services."
- "There continues to be high rates of domestic violence within the Asian Indian community which is often denied, minimized or rationalized by community leaders."
- "Asian Indians experience several significant medical problems (diabetes, heart related illness) at rates that are far higher than experienced by other groups. This issue is impacting a growing number of families, yet needed prevention, education, and screening is very much underutilized. A growing body of medical research indicates that some of these health related problems have both a genetic as well as behavioral causative and contributory factors."
Overall, Fiebert said it's hard to get members of the Indian community to confront these issues.
"Leaders in the Indian community must take the lead in promoting prevention and quality care and must put these issues as high for their community," he wrote in an email. "Healthcare and social service professionals need to do more research and develop some specialized and culturally appropriate approaches and interventions."
Some proposals the report makes:
- Encourage Hindu temples and Asian Indian organizations to make mental health education and promotion a priority.
- Encourage Hindu temples and Asian Indian organizations to promote domestic violence prevention and education and to actively raise their community’s awareness of this problem.
- Employ a culturally and linguistically competent counselor for mental health outreach to the Asian Indian community.
- Develop a culturally and linguistically competent family and marriage counseling approach that is consistent with Asian Indian values and traditions.
- Encourage the Asian Indian community to design and provide appropriate testing, prevention, and cardiovascular treatment strategies to lower cardiovascular risks.
- Provide a bilingual paralegal to offer basic immigration information and help completing forms.
- Make funding available to Asian Indian organizations for additional ESL classes, especially for seniors.
I'm still going through the report and am finding it quite illuminating. I'd also say many of the issues he notes can be applied to Indian-American communities throughout the country.
What do YOU think? Post your comments below.
[UPDATE: Prof. Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University has responded to this report. Please take a look.]
Earlier on SAJAforum:
- How does parental pressure affect career choice? Participants needed
- Measuring discrimination against South Asians
- Indians are slow to assimilate in America
- Indian couples needed for online survey - gender roles and relationship satisfaction
- Indian Americans and drug use
- The problem of binge drinking among young South Asians
