Māori and Pacific people show lower mental illness stigma, study finds

A University of Otago study reveals that Māori and Pacific people in New Zealand hold significantly lower stigma towards individuals with mental illness than European and Asian populations. The findings challenge previous assumptions about indigenous populations and mental health stigma.

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Stigma has many different components to it, and we focused just on one stigmatising attitude, which was how participants rated their feelings of warmth towards those with mental illness. Now, the findings challenged previous narratives held by past research and the general public to some extent that certain ethnicities or indigenous populations are synonymous with greater mental health stigma.

Lead author Issac Jamieson explained that the study analyzed "ratings of warmth" towards those with mental illness among over 58,000 participants in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study. He suggested that a collective worldview, prevalent among Māori and Pacific peoples, might contribute to these lower stigma levels.

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One of the other things we discuss as well is how Māori have developed a language around mental health that may actually be less stigmatising than what we traditionally use today. So we talk about the example of ADHD, which stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Māori have developed the word, aroreretini, which means the mind goes to many things.

Māori health models, such as Te Whare Tapa Whā, which considers mental wellbeing as one of four essential pillars of health, and other models recognizing the impact of broader environmental systems on individuals, offer valuable frameworks. Jamieson also pointed to the development of less stigmatizing language around mental health within Māori culture, citing the word 'aroreretini' for ADHD, which translates to 'the mind goes to many things'.

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Culture is really central to us understanding and reducing mental health stigma. And I guess to better understand the stigma associated with mental health challenges, we must better understand how different cultures define and perceive these challenges.

"Culture is really central to us understanding and reducing mental health stigma," Jamieson stated. He emphasized the need for culturally responsive interventions that integrate diverse worldviews to effectively tackle mental health stigma. Despite positive shifts, he acknowledged that significant work remains to reduce the pervasive stigma associated with mental illness.

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So what we really want is some culturally responsive interventions that take into account these different world views.