Friday, June 19, 2020

Source name The Star (, ON) (web site) • 652 words The Star (Toronto, ON) (web site) Source type East Asian face a Press • Online Press Periodicity 'disproportionate' mental health Continuously impact of COVID, study says Geographical coverage Regional Nicholas Keung Origin Toronto, , Canada

ast face a The COVID-19 pandemic has exerted an extra toll on Asian Canadians, due to the disproportionate mental health racism they've faced, a new study E impact from the COVID-19 concludes. pandemic as a result of targeted racist at- tacks, violence and discrimination, a East Asian Canadians explain their new study says. higher levels of mental health symptoms Based on random sampling, researchers as compared to white Canadians.” surveyed 2,033 respondents online with Since the start of the outbreak in Cana- questions ranging from demographic da, there has been a spike in anti-Asian status to the impact of COVID-19 on hate crimes across Canada. In Vancou- workplaces, personal habits, risk per- ver, there have been 29 anti-Asian at- ceptions and discrimination. tacks since the pandemic hit B.C., while Respondents were also asked a set of during the same time period last year, standardized questions related to their there were only four similar cases. mental well-being such as if they were An anti-Asian racism coalition, fearful; felt that everything they did was launched in response to the pandemic, an effort; experienced loneliness; were has documented 138 incidents of bothered by things that usually don’t COVID-related racism harassment, with bother them; were restless; or had trou- 110 of those reported in May alone. ble keeping their mind on what they were doing. York sociology professor Cary Wu, the report’s lead author, said the percentage “While the current COVID-19 pandem- of Canadians who reported fair or poor ic has had deleterious mental health im- mental health has tripled from 8 per cent pacts on all Canadians, some groups before the onset of the pandemic to 24 have been more vulnerable than others,” per cent after it began. More than half of concluded the joint study by York Uni- Canadians also said their mental health Copyright 2020. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. versity and the University of British Co- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. has worsened as a result of social dis- lumbia, published this week by the So- Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited with- tancing. out permission. All Rights Reserved. The present cial Science Research Network journal. document and its usage are protected under interna- tional copyright laws and conventions. After controlling for demographic fac- “We indeed find that during the Certificate issued on September 24, 2021 to Démo TK for tors among the respondents such as in- personal and temporary display. COVID-19 pandemic, higher incidences news·20200619·TTAW·d252a55b-a71f-422d-9a36-ce61e8903c03 come, education and immigration status, of acute discrimination encountered by Wu said those of East Asian back-

This document is destined for the exclusive use of the individual designated by Démo-–-TK and cannot be used for any other purpose or distributed to third parties. • All rights reserved • Service provided by CEDROM-SNi Inc. 1 grounds — including Chinese, Koreans health services before the pandemic, due and Japanese — reported poorer mental to language and cultural barriers. During health and more discrimination during the pandemic, they actually are suffering the pandemic. more because of discrimination, we re- ally need to think about how we can bet- Respondents were asked to give a score ter design our mental health programs to to each question that best reflected their address their needs.” conditions, and the scores were used to tabulate their discrimination and depres- Nicholas Keung is a Toronto-based re- sion indexes. Overall, East Asian re- porter covering immigration for the Star. spondents showed poorer mental health Follow him on Twitter: @nkeung and cited more incidents of racism and perceived racism than white Canadians. The study is statistically significant with a P-value under 0.01.

Wu said any increase in the respondents’ experience of and response to acute dis- crimination is associated with the in- creased mental health symptoms they reported. After controlling for acute dis- crimination, the East Asian-white men- tal health gap is no longer statistically significant, explaining the contributing factor.

“Because the outbreak started in China, Chinese and Chinese-looking East Asian Canadians may have experienced more racist attacks, violence, and dis- crimination during the crisis than other groups,” he said.

“Not only are they facing the impacts of COVID-19 but also of rising anti-Asian attacks in their everyday life.”

Wu said previous studies have found East Asians are generally less likely to seek mental health services, and this re- port underscores the need for interven- tions and support designed specifically to address the needs of the East Asian Canadians in the response to the pan- demic.

“East Asians and immigrants were less likely than other groups to use mental

This document is destined for the exclusive use of the individual designated by Démo-–-TK and cannot be used for any other purpose or distributed to third parties. • All rights reserved • Service provided by CEDROM-SNi Inc. 2