Inequities in Access to Mental Health Services Among Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Medicaid Enrollees

Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) people are often aggregated into a monolithic group, but when they are disaggregated into ethnic groups (e.g., Chinese), inequities can be identified. Using a representative sample of adult Medicaid enrollees (N=55,215), the authors assessed inequities in self-reported access to mental or behavioral health services between non-Hispanic AA and NHPI Medicaid enrollees and non-Hispanic White Medicaid enrollees, both by racial group and across 10 disaggregated ethnic groups. AA and NHPI enrollees, by race and all 10 ethnicities, reported significantly worse mental health care access than did White enrollees. The magnitude of disparities also differed between ethnic groups, ranging from -14.6 percentage points for Native Hawaiian enrollees to -43.6 percentage points for Vietnamese enrollees.