Poster #17

Trauma-Related Mental Health Trends and Family History Factors of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) Adolescents at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility

By: Danielle Carreira Ching and Veronica Acosta

Abstract:

The majority of justice-involved youth have experienced substantial adversity resulting in varying levels of traumatic stress, emotional dysregulation, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms (Dierkhising et al., 2013; Charak et al., 2018). Current literature on trauma-related trends in justice-involved youth focuses on various subpopulations including poly-victimization (Ford et al., 2013; Charak et al., 2018), crossover youth (Dierkhising et al., 2019), as well as gang-involved and formerly incarcerated youth (Kerig et al., 2016; Dierkhising et al., 2021). At this time, there has been no studies to date that have explored trauma-related mental health trends for the juvenile correctional population in Hawaiʻi. Therefore, this proposed study examines trauma-related mental health trends for NHPI youth who have entered Hawaiʻi Youth Correctional Facility (HYCF), the only juvenile correctional setting in Hawaiʻi.

Archival data from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Division (CAMHD) of the Department of Health was used to examine youth incarcerated at HYCF across two fiscal years of 2020 and 2021. Fifty-nine adolescents entered or reentered into HYCF from July 2019 to June 2021. Thirteen youth identified as female and 46 identified as male. Regarding race and ethnicity, 40.7% of youth were of part Native Hawaiian descent, 11.8% were multiracial, and 47.5% were of a single race and ethnicity. Of the youth who had only one race and ethnicity, 71.4% were of NHPI descent. Of those of Native Hawaiian descent, 75% were diagnosed with a trauma-related mental health diagnosis compared to 37.1% of their non-Native Hawaiian counterparts. Analyses will explore trends in trauma-related mental health diagnosis across two years for NHPI youth and the relationship between family history and background factors. The results will allow for further understanding of trauma-related mental health trends for youth in Hawaiʻi and address clinical implications and recommendations.