Margarita Alegria, PhD, Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research, Cambridge Health Alliance, 120 Beacon Street, 4th Floor, Somerville, MA 02143, 617-503-8447, malegria@charesearch.org, Thomas McGuire, PhD, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 180 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA 02115-5899, Glorisa Canino, PhD, Behavioral Sciences Research Institute Office A 928, University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, San Juan, PR 00935, Patrick E. Shrout, PhD, Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, Room 308, New York, NY 10003, and Naihua Duan, PhD, UCLA Center for Community Health, UCLA, 10920 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 350, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

The objective of the National Latino and Asian American Study is to measure psychiatric disorders and mental health service usage in a representative sample of Latinos and Asians living in the United States. This paper gives an overview of prevalence rates of mental disorders and the utilization of mental health services among the Latino members of the sample. We report lifetime and 12-month prevalence rates for specific as well as broad classes of disorders for each of the sub-ethnic Latino groups and for all Latinos by language of interview and immigration status. We also focus on mental health disparities that exist within the Latino population, as well as between Latinos and other ethnic and racial groups. The analyses include information on the percent of individuals meeting criteria for any lifetime disorder who received any lifetime treatment, and the percent of 12 month cases that received any 12-month treatment. Finally, we examine differences across the Latino subgroups in risk profile for mental disorders and in service disparities. We discuss potential explanations for the higher rates of psychiatric disorders reported for Puerto Ricans compared to other Latino subgroups, as well as the lower rates of service utilization for Mexican Americans.

Learning Objectives:

• To obtain a clear understanding of the central issues in psychiatric epidemiology with Latino populations.
• To identify mental health disparities that exist within Latino populations as well as between Latinos and other populations.

Keywords: Mental Health, Latino

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.