Ethnic Differences In Asian Americans Research Assignment (Essay Sample)

ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN ASIAN AMERICANS
Abstract
The overall health and well-being of Asian Americans can be accurately captured by understanding how mental and physical health can be assessed in these ethnic groups. This study seeks to find out the ethnic differences in Self-Rated Mental and Physical Health in Asian Americans .The specific goals of the study is to approximate the prevalence of mental health disorders and service use among Latino and Asian American populations while exploring the relationship between psycho-social factors, social position, and environmental context, and prevalence rates of mental health disorders and service use in Latinos and Asian Americans with African Americans. It also seeks to compare the prevalence of mental health disorders and service use of Latinos and Asian Americans with African Americans and non-Latino rates. After controlling for these variables, results demonstrate ethnic differences in the endorsement of mental and physical health ratings. Compared to Filipinos, Vietnamese and Chinese individuals reported lower ratings of both mental and physical health. These findings provide a preliminary understanding regarding the ethnic differences observed in the mental and physical health ratings of Asian American groups. This project highlights the need to better understand how self-rated mental and physical health assessments can be used to measure overall health and well-being in Asian Americans.
Keywords: mental health, physical health, ethnic differences, Asian Americans
Introduction
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. According to the United States Census Bureau (2004), Asian Americans with no other ancestry comprise 4.8% of the U.S. population, while people who are Asian alone or combined with at least one other race make up 5.6%. They are also one of the fastest growing racial minority groups in the United States.Physical health refers to the soundness of the body, freedom from disease or abnormality, and the condition of optimal well-being. It is when the body is functioning as it was designed to function. Mental health is a level of psychological well-being, or an absence of mental illness. It is the psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment. Self-Rated Mental and Physical Health on participants assesses different dimensions of their own health.
Literature Review
Asian Americans report higher levels of distress than White Americans (Uba, 1994). According to Kinzie et al (1973) female Asian American students of Chinese and Japanese ancestry scored as being more depressed than female White American students on the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (Zung, 1965). Research conducted by Breslau & Chang, 2006; Leu et al., 2008 has indicated the relationships between health and well-being, and socioeconomic status, immigration, and acculturative factors.
Socio demographic factors is a major predictor of self rated health. According to Kim, Jang, et al., 2010; Kim et al., 2011,the need to explore the predictors of self-rated mental and physical health across Asian American groups is that it provides clinicians with an increased understanding of the disparities in health assessment measures that exist among Asian American ethnicities.
While previous research has extensively examined a single-item, self-rated assessment of physical health, little attention has been given to the exploration of a single-item, self-rated assessment of mental health (Zuvekas & Fleishman, 2008). Only more recently has research started to explore self-rated measures that assess both mental health and physical health (de Castro, Rue, & Takeuchi, 2010). Moreover, while these self-report assessments have been widely researched in studies involving Asian American samples (de Castro, Gee, & Takeuchi, 2009; Huh, Prause, & Dooley, 2008; Zhang & Ta, 2009), there is a paucity of research that has investigated how ratings on these assessments would vary across Asian American communities.
The current study aims to extend the current understanding of ethnic differences in the Asian Americans by approximating the prevalence of mental health disorders and service use among Latino and Asian American populations while exploring the relationship between psycho-social factors, social position, and environmental context, and prevalence rates of mental health disorders and service use in Latinos and Asian Americans with comparison to African Americans.
I hypothesize that ethnic differences will predict self-rated mental health and self-rated physical health in Asian Americans, after controlling for sociodemographic factors, socioeconomic factors, and religiosity/spirituality.
Research Questions.
1 Does sociodemographic factors affect the self-rated mental health and self-rated physical health in Asian Americans?
2 Does socioeconomic factors affect the self-rated mental health and self-rated physical health in Asian Americans?
3 Does religiosity/spirituality affects the self-rated mental health and self-rated physical health in Asian Americans?
Method
Study Design
This study represents secondary analyses of data collected from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), which employed a stratified sampling probability design (Alegria et al., 2004). In order to be qualified for the study, participants were 18 years of age or older; resided in the non-institutionalized population of the United States; and identified as either Latino, Spanish, or Hispanic, or Asian American. Questionnaires were administered to collect demographic data including race, sex, age, marital status, education, and household income. The study sample focused on Asian American (n = 2,095).
Participants
Of the 2,095 Asian American participants included in this project, 24.2% identified themselves as Filipino (n = 508), 24.8% as Vietnamese (n = 520), 28.6% as Chinese (n = 600), and 22.3% as Other Asian American (n = 467). In this sample, 52.4% were female (n = 1097) and 47.6% were male (n = 998). The average age was 41.22 (SD = 14.77, range 18 - 95). A majority of participants (70.2%) were married or cohabitating (n = 1470); 8.7% were divorced,separated, or widowed (n = 182); and 21.1% were never married (n = 443). Most participants (41.9%) received 16 years of education or higher (n = 878), 25.3% received 13 to 15 years of education (n = 529), 17.8% received 12 years of education (n = 372), and 15.1% of participants received 0 to 11 years of education (n = 316). The average household income was $72, 498 (SD = $58,744; range $0 - $200,000). All participants resided in the United States. The demographic information for this sample is presented in Table 1.
Measures
Religiosity/Spirituality: Religiosity/Spirituality was assessed using the item, “When you have problems or difficulties in your family, work, or personal life, how often do you seek comfort through religious or spiritual means, such as praying, meditating, attending a religious or spiritual service, or talking to a religious or spiritual advisor?” Participants reported on the frequency they sought comfort through religious or spiritual means using a 4-point likert item that included the following responses: (1) never, (2) rarely, (3) sometimes, and (4) often. These responses have been reverse coded from the original data. Descriptives for this variable are presented in Table 2.
Self-rated mental health : Self-rated mental health (SRMH) was assessed using the item, “How would you rate your overall mental health?” Participants rated their overall mental health using a 5-point likert item that included the following responses: (1) poor, (2) fair, (3) good, (4) very good, and (5) excellent. These responses have been reverse coded from the original data. A single-item assessment of mental health has been used in existing research (Zuvekas & Fleishman, 2008), and specifically in studies involving Asian American samples (de Castro, Gee,& Takeuchi, 2009; Huh, Prause, & Dooley, 2008; Zhang & Ta, 2009;). Descriptives for this variable are presented in Table 2
Self-rated physical health : Self-rated physical health (SRPH) was assessed using the item, “How would you rate your over...