Researchers: Ora Nakash¹, Tsahi Hayat¹, Sarah Abu- Kaf², Itzhak Levav³

Background: Mental Health literacy (MHL) is the ability to understand health information originating from different sources. Little is known about ethnic differences in sources for health information, and the effect of these differences on elderly MHL and on service utilization.

Objectives: Examine the different mental health information sources used by elderly from different ethnic groups, and investigate the effect these differences have on MHL and on service utilization.

Method: 893 elderly participants over the age of 60 (562 Israeli born Jews, 109 Bedouins and 222 Former Soviet Union (FSU) completed questioners assessing demographic information, mental health service utilization, MHL and physical and emotional health. A subsample of the respondents (N=522) also participated in an in-depth interview for social network analysis.

Findings: Israeli born Jews reported lower emotional distress, higher mental health literacy and higher utilization of mental health services compared to Jewish immigrants from the FSU and ethnic minorities. We found significant differences between the ethnic groups in sources for mental health information. Notably, immigrants from the FSU tended to rely more on friends and relatives, while Bedouins turned more the religious figures. The characteristics of the social network of participants and its heterogeneity has significant contribution to mental health literacy especially among immigrants.

Conclusions: The heterogeneity of social networks plays an important role in mental health literacy, particularly for immigrant older adults. Improving mental health literacy among immigrants and ethnic minorities' older adults is important in light of the increased mental health distress and lower mental health utilization they report compared to natives.

Recommendations: Identifying mental health information sources, while focusing on the characteristics of social networks will allow developing evidence based, culturally sensitive interventions to improve MHL and reduce barriers to accessing mental health services among seniors from different ethnic groups.

Research end date: 12/2019