science

Health status of Asian Americans

Health status of Asian Americans is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Health status of Asian Americans rather than just read about it. In short: Asian Americans have historically been perceived as a "model minority", experiencing few health problems relative to other minority groups. Research within the past 20 years, however, has shown that Asian Americans are at high risk for hepatitis B, liver cancer, tuberculosis, and lung cancer, among other conditions.

Key takeaways

Health status of Asian Americans belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Health status of Asian Americans to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Health status of Asian Americans from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Asian Americans have historically been perceived as a "model minority", experiencing few health problems relative to other minority groups. Research within the past 20 years, however, has shown that Asian Americans are at high risk for hepatitis B, liver cancer, tuberculosis, and lung cancer, among other conditions. Asian American health disparities have gained focus only in the past 10 years, with policy initiatives geared towards promoting healthcare access to Asian Americans rising to prominence even later. Asian Americans are defined as Americans of Asian ancestry and constitute nearly 5% of American's population as of 2003, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet, the Asian American population can hardly be described as homogenous. The term applies to members of over 25 groups that have been classified as a single group because of similar appearances, cultural values, and common ethnic backgrounds. The Asian Americans commonly studied have been limited primarily to individuals of Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Lao, Mien, or Vietnamese descent.

Health disparities Asian Americans are a heterogeneous group. The racial class is composed of many different ethnicities and cultures. In addition to country of origin, individuals can differ in socioeconomic status, education level, immigration status, level of acculturation, and English proficiency. In general, ethnic groups have their own health disparities. Vietnamese and Filipino Americans tend to have poorer health outcomes compared with Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans. Self-rated health was lowest in Vietnamese Americans, while Filipino Americans have the highest rates of chronic diseases, including asthma, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Filipinos are also an ethnic group that is a risk factor for premature births and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or "Lou Gehrig's disease"). Koreans exhibit the highest psychological stress out of all ethnic groups. Thus, to classify and generalize health disparities to such a heterogeneous group may not be beneficial; however, a few health statistics can still be gleaned from general trends. Genetic inherited disorders and diseases (e.g. colorblindness, hemophilia) were reported to be uncommon in all Asian ethnic groups.

Cardiovascular disease Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading killers in all ethnic groups and a major contributor to disability among older adults. The incidence of heart disease is known to increase with age and the majority of deaths from coronary artery disease occur in people ages 65 years and older. While the rates of death from cardiovascular disease are lower for Asian Americans relative to other ethnic groups, they are still diagnosed with hypertension and heart disease. Cardiovascular disease and associated risk factors among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, obesity, and diabetes mellitus. According to American Heart Association in 2016, around 19.5% of Asian Americans have high blood pressure. In 2013, 18,819 deaths among Asians and Pacific Islanders were from cardiovascular disease, 8,477 from chronic heart disease, and 2,616 from myocardial infarction. Cancer, the second leading cause of death, contributed to 21.3% in 2017. The prevalence of coronary heart disease among Asian Americans is estimated to be around 4.9%. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death for all Americans, and continues to disproportionally affect the Asian Americans who are disadvantageous in society because of various social determinants. The social determinants leading to health disparity include lack of language proficiency, health illiteracy from lower education attainment, racial discrimination, economic instability and poor community engagement. According to the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparity (NIMHD) sponsored lecture "Health Disparity Research in Diverse Asian American Populations in 2016", 70% of foreign-born Asian Americans were identified as having limited English proficiency, dissimilar cultural beliefs and behaviors, as well as unfamiliarity with the Western health care system and difficulty following instructions at the doctor's office. Addressing the health disparities requires significant awareness, comprehension, and consideration for the growing diversity of Asian population, especially for the foreign-born older Asian Americans. Understanding the impact of social determinants on health equity is crucial to health care professionals and policy makers to reduce health disparities and improve the health equality among Asian Americans and the underserved populations.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Health status of Asian Americans

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Health status of Asian Americans claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Health status of Asian Americans before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Health status of Asian Americans ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Health status of Asian Americans

In research: Health status of Asian Americans appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Health status of Asian Americans in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Health status of Asian Americans is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Asian diaspora in the United States, Race and health in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Health status of Asian Americans outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Health status of Asian Americans in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Health status of Asian Americans means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Health status of Asian Americans out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Health status of Asian Americans in simple terms?

Why does Health status of Asian Americans matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Health status of Asian Americans?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Health status of Asian Americans.