Mental Health Care Utilization Among Spanish-Speaking Hispanics in the Aftermath of COVID-19 and a Continuously...

Between 2000 and 2022, the number of Spanish-speaking Hispanics in the U.S. increased by 15.1 million, and research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic disproportionately affected this population's mental health. At the same time, the expansion of virtual care has been promoted as a strategy to improve accessibility which may have contributed to higher rates of service utilization among Hispanics. In addition, recent initiatives have sought to expand the Spanish-speaking mental health workforce. Building on these developments, the present study examines patterns of mental health service use within the Hispanic population. Specifically, it aims to determine whether language continues to pose a barrier to accessing mental health care among Hispanics in the aftermath of COVID-19 and whether this varies according to gender. A cross-sectional study using pooled data from the 2021 and 2022 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) was designed and included 8,634 Hispanics ages 5 - 64 years living in the United States (50.6% females, 30.2% Spanish-speaking, 38.6% foreign-born), where only 9.3% reported utilizing mental health services. Survey-Weighted logistic regression analysis revealed that Spanish-speaking Hispanic females had the lowest odds of receiving mental health services (OR = 0.52, p < .001), followed by Spanish-speaking Hispanic males (OR = 0.62, p < .05) and English-speaking Hispanic males (OR = 0.68, p < .001) when compared to English-speaking Hispanic females and after controlling for age, Hispanic origin, nativity, insurance status, income, and anxiety and depression frequency. These findings speak to the need to continue efforts to improve the utilization of the mental health system for Spanish-speaking Hispanics, particularly Spanish-speaking women, as well as for all Hispanic males.