Yanna Morales Studies Intergenerational Households to Understand Mental Health-Seeking Behaviors

Irianna "Yanna" Morales grew up in a San Francisco home that held three generations under one roof: her grandmother, her parents and her siblings.

Her experiences of living in a multi-generational home inspired the subject of her independent research. Morales, a senior who's double majoring in psychology and ethnic studies at the University of San Diego (USD), is conducting a study that examines how intergenerational household living shapes mental health-seeking behaviors among young Filipino Americans.

"In the Philippines, there are cultural values that can stigmatize mental health as not important," Morales said. "I wanted to understand how those values — passed down through grandparents and older generations — influence whether a child raised in America reaches out for help."

The study uses a 40-question survey targeting Filipino American adults ages 18 to 25 who grew up in multi-generational homes. Questions probe parent-child relationships, cultural gaps between generations, the importance of grandparents on cultural identity formation and, ultimately, participants' attitudes toward professional mental health care.

Morales is aiming for 125 responses, and the survey is currently open. The survey is available on Qualtrics under the title "Intergenerational Household Living and Mental Health in Filipino American Young Adults."

The project draws on both psychology and ethnic studies, and it occupies a gap Morales identified while reviewing existing research. "There really isn't a lot out there on this — especially focused on third-generation families and the specific role grandparents play," she said. "That's exactly the space I want to fill."

Before college, Morales served as youth program leader for the Tzu Chi Foundation's Youth Warriors program in San Francisco's Alice Griffith neighborhood, designing wellness workshops on emotional, mental, social and financial health for young people during and after the pandemic. The work sharpened her conviction that mental health resources are not reaching communities that need them most.

"Growing up, therapy wasn't available to us — and if we were aware of it, we couldn’t afford it," she said. "Mental health was stigmatized. I want to help change that."

Morales plans to take a gap year after graduating in May before pursuing graduate training in clinical psychology or a related field, with the long-term goal of making mental health services more culturally accessible and responsive. She said her research has already shifted how she sees that future.

"I wasn't interested in research at first," she admitted. "But now I love it. It's opened up pathways I didn’t know existed."