Aging, Emotion, and Being Seen: Mental Health Among Haitian Older Adults | CFBH

Haitian elders carry lives shaped by migration, faith, family, and resilience. An emerging study from Barry University asks what emotional well-being looks like for this community — in their own words.

Emerging research: CFBH is featuring it here as part of our commitment to surfacing research that matters — including work that is still finding its answers.

Jinia Williams, M.S., LMHC, NCC

Think about what it means to grow old far from the place where you were born. You carry the language, the food, the prayers, the customs — all of it — into a country that does not always understand them. You age within systems — healthcare, social services, mental health — that were not built with you in mind. For Haitian older adults living in South Florida, this is not abstract. It is daily life. Yet the mental health of this community — how they feel, what gives them strength, what makes things hard — has been studied far less than it deserves. Why this community, and why nowSouth Florida is home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States. Many of these residents arrived decades ago — fleeing political instability, economic hardship, or natural disaster — and built lives here through enormous personal sacrifice. Those who came as young adults are now entering older age, and the same systems that were not designed for them then are still not designed for them now.

Approximately 14% of adults aged 70 and older live with a diagnosable mental health condition globally — yet mental health challenges in this age group remain among the most underrecognized and undertreated. Among older immigrant adults, barriers to care extend beyond availability. Language, cultural mistrust, stigma, and systems that do not reflect their values shape whether and how people seek support.

Haitian culture holds deep, specific values about aging. Elders are respected as sources of wisdom and moral guidance. Family and community are central. Faith — both Christian tradition and indigenous spiritual practice — shapes how people understand health, struggle, and healing. These are not footnotes to this community's experience. They are the foundation of it. Yet behavioral health research has largely treated Haitian older adults as part of broad categories — "immigrant populations," "minority elders" — rather than as a community with a distinct history, language, and way of understanding the world.

The barriers that matterFor Haitian older adults, the barriers can be significant and layered.

LanguageLimited English can restrict access to services and make it harder to communicate distress in clinical settings.

StigmaMental health challenges are sometimes understood through spiritual frameworks that discourage engagement with Western clinical care.

MistrustHistorical experiences of discrimination and systemic exclusion shape how people relate to institutions and formal services.

AccessTransportation, cost, and a shortage of Creole-speaking providers create practical obstacles to care

None of these barriers is the fault of the individuals facing them. They are the result of systems that were designed without this community in mind. Research that names them clearly is the first step toward changing them. Strength is part of the story, too.Strong family networks. Faith communities that function as social anchors. Cultural traditions that honor age rather than dismiss it. A collective history of resistance and survival that stretches back to 1804, when Haiti became the world's first Black republic. These are not small things. They are the protective factors that research consistently finds matter most for emotional well-being in older age. Why it matters beyond South FloridaThe Haitian community in South Florida is the focus. But the questions this research asks matter far beyond a single zip code or population. How do we build mental health systems that actually serve people whose lives, languages, and cultural frameworks don't match the dominant assumptions those systems were built on? How do we train counselors and practitioners to show up with real cultural humility — not just awareness, but genuine responsiveness? And how do we make sure that older adults from immigrant communities are not invisible to the research that is supposed to inform their care? These are questions that the behavioral health field is still working to answer. Studies like this one are part of how that work gets done.

About this studyWilliams, J. (2026). Aging and Emotional Well-Being: A Narrative Exploration of Haitian Older Adults in South Florida. Dissertation Prospectus, Barry University College of Health Professions and Medical Sciences. Supervised by Dr. George Vera. Specialization: Marriage, Family, and Couple Counseling. Key frameworks cited in the study
Social Determinants of Health Framework — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2024); World Health Organization (2025).
Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies — Ratts et al. (2016).
Narrative Inquiry Methodology — Clandinin (2006); Connelly & Clandinin (1990).
Demographic contextDain, B. & Batalova, J. (2023). Haitian Immigrants in the United States. Migration Policy Institute.World Health Organization. (2025). Mental Health of Older Adults.