What The Government's Latest Asian-American Health Report Got Wrong

Asian-Americans fare better than the general population on five different measures of health, according to a new national study.  But though it may appear that the "model minority" myth about the 15 million Asians in America extends even to physical and mental health, experts say this finding obscures the truth about vast disparities between Asian subgroups -- and that the study's methodology may have prevented the elderly, immigrants and people who don't speak English from contributing to a more nuanced picture of the health status of Asians in America.  The report, published by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, found that, as a whole, the group has better-than-average measures of chronic disease, self-reported "poor" health, work limitations, social participation issues and serious psychological distress. But in addition to painting a very broad, largely positive health picture, the research also exposes biases in data collection that may be skewing the results toward younger, more assimilated Asian-Americans.  Though often tallied as such, Asian-Americans are not a monolith. Seventy-four percent of Asian-American adults were born outside of the U.S., and they come from more than 30 countries around the world. They represent dozens of different languages and have widely varied socioeconomic statuses, education levels, careers, immigration statuses and English-speakin...
Source: Science - The Huffington Post - Category: Science Source Type: news