Indigenous people display lower mental illness stigma in Aotearoa

Mental illness stigma continues to be pervasive and problematic in society. Researchers have attempted to better understand this stigma through investigations into demographic factors that may predict stigma, focusing on factors such as age, ethnicity and education.

We investigated demographic factors in the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, with a particular focus on Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa. We used data from the Health Promotion Agency, which collected representative samples from Aotearoa across three survey waves (total n = 3518). Assessment instruments were the Mental Health Knowledge Scale (MAKS), the Reported and Intended Behaviour Scale (RIBS) and the Community Mental Health Ideology subscale of the Community Attitudes towards the Mentally Ill (CAMI). Using linear mixed-effects model we controlled for several demographic variables (e.g. age, biological sex, education and socioeconomic status) and additional variables (e.g. having a psychological condition and whether participants knew someone with mental illness) across three models for each measure.

The results revealed that mental illness stigma was lower among both Māori and European participants. Additional variables and their associations with mental illness stigma are also discussed.

Overall, this study illustrates mental illness stigma as lower among Indigenous people in Aotearoa, which prompts further research into ethnicity and mental illness stigma as well as non-Western understandings of mental illness.