Health Disparity Topic Selection and Analysis: Mental Health of the Asian-American Elderly
Mental Health of the Asian-American Elderly
Asian-Americans constitute an important racial/ethnic minority in the US. A few facts
that have been given by the US Census Bureau include:
• In 2011, the population of Asians with more than one race was estimated at 18.2 million.
• The referred population includes about 50 subgroups with reference to origins, diversity in culture, ethnicity, religious traditions, English proficiency, and geographical and immigration history
• The Asian population has been estimated to about 40.6 million by 2050.
• Most of the Asian population in the US is concentrated in the Western states of California and Hawaii.
(US Census Bureau, 2012).
Literature Review on the Asian-American Mental Health Status
A number of scholarly works have been implicated in the elderly Asian American mental health. Normal ageing could be assumed differently from people with dementia from the Asian origin creating stigmatization, aggravating severe chronic mental illness (Liu, et al., 2008). Asian immigrants with difficulty in English have made them prone to difficulties in communication creating disparities in the health status specially the mental health (Mui, et al., 2007). Recent elderly Asian immigrants have been experiencing acculturation stress, involuntary resettlement, and barriers in stereotypical intergenerational solidarity (Ng & Northcott, 2010). Education and self-efficacy had positive correlations with health promotion and mental well-being in Asian immigrants (Sohng, Sohng, & Yeom, 2002).
Analyses of Asian American Elderly
Population rise for the last 3 decades secondary to the im...
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... and Malays. International Journal
of Geriatric Psychiatry, 24(7), 723-730.
Sohng, K-Y., Sohng, S., & Yeom, H-A. (2002). Health promoting behaviors of elderly Korean
immigrants in the United States. Public Health Nursing, 19(4), 294-300.
Thomas, K. & Snowden, L.R. (2002). Differential response to health insurance: minority
response to health insurance coverage for mental health services. Journal of Mental
Health Policy and Economics, 4(1), 35-41.
Vega, W.A. & Lopez, S.R. (2001). priority issues in Latino mental health services research.
Mental Health Services Research, 3(4), 189-200.
CDC. (2008). The State of Mental Health and Aging in America. Retrieved from:
http://www.cdc.gov/aging/pdf/mental_health.pdf
US Census Bureau. (2012). The Asian Population: 2010. Retrieved from: http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-11.pdf
Asma Awan.
Dr. Stanley Sue is an Asian American clinical psychologist whose research focus is on Asian American minorities. Dr. Sue was born in Portland, Oregon and was the third of six children to his Chinese immigrant parents. As a child “his first career ambition was to repair televisions, but soon he got bored with shop classes. Then, he developed great fascination with psychotherapy and the idea of helping emotionally disturbed individuals (Rockwell 2001).” Dr. Sue recalled, “I told my parents that I wanted to become a clinical psychologist, not fully knowing what a clinical psychologists did (Rockwell 2001).” He also remembered what his father said and thought after making this declaration: “My father, who was born in China, said, ‘What is that?’ He couldn’t believe that people would pay me to listen to their problems – indeed, he wondered if I could make a decent living (Rockwell 2001).”
Immigration: 1 million per year, mostly from Asia and Latin America - came in search of better lives, Latinos made up nearly 1/3 of the population in CA, AZ, and TX, and 40% in NM
Yarova LA, Krassen Covan E, Fugate-Whitlock E. Effect of Acculturation and Health Beliefs on Utilization of Health Care Services by Elderly Women Who Immigrated to the USA From the Former Soviet Union. Health Care for Women International. 2013;34(12):1097-115.
The terms Asian American, Asian Pacific American, and Asian Pacific Islander are all used to describe residents of the United States, who themselves are from or their ancestors were from the Asian Pacific region of the world. “Although the term Asian American may bring to mind someone of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, or Asian Indian descent, the U.S. Census Bureau actually includes 31 different groups within the Asian Pacific designation (Sigler, 1998).” For example, someone from Guatemala, Cambodia, Samoa, Thailand, Laos, Hawaii, or Tonga would also fall into this category of being Asian American, even though ...
How and why does the Model Minority Myth continue to be believed and perpetuated in today’s American society? How do Asian Americans navigate living under the Myth and what are the consequences and effects of those navigations, especially regarding self-identity and mental health? How does the Myth affect the different ethnicities that are grouped under the umbrella term of “Asian”? The Myth was started in the late 1960’s with multiple newspaper articles published about the success of Asian Americans and how that success could be attributed to Asian cultural values. Due to this success, Asian Americans were generalized as a successful minority that did not face discrimination or racism since the Myth was characterized as positive and not hurtful. The Myth has continued to exist and be prevalent today, even with the scholarly understanding that it is indeed a myth. In my paper, I will claim that in order to navigate living under
In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.
Mental illness is an addition to all of the previously listed perceived disadvantages of Native Americans by those of other ethnicities. Many believe that Native Americans are at a higher risk for mental illness than those of European descent. Many also believe that Native Americans have more people suffer from depression than their white counterparts (Stark & Wilkins, American Indian Politics and the American Political System, 2011). There have been studies conducted to test whether or not this is the case, with mixed results. Some studies say that Natives are at a higher risk and others say they are not. This discrepancy makes the answer unclear. If Natives are actually at a higher risk for and have more people suffering from depression than individuals of European descent, the question to ask is, “why?” Several factors play into depression and other mental illness, including biology, social standing, history, family, and any preexisting/comorbid diseases that could contribute to or cause depression.
However, Asians are rapidly becoming a greater force in American culture as the proportion of educated Asian-Americans rises. Despite small numbers, they begin to have more and more influence in the business and professional worlds as well as academics. They are an interesting group, however, caught between two extremely different cultures as they seek to strike a balance between the ideals of their parents and the world they live in.
...as the largest racial ethnic group in California. It is projected that by the year 2016, 28 million Latinos will vote in the American elections. The Latino votes played a major role in the re-election of President Obama. Asians also supported the president’s re-election.
The Asian American community in the contemporary period face a lot of race relation issues which all interconnect within each other. Asian Americans face the basis of “Model Minority” that purportedly whitens Asians leading to the belief that there are no issues such as racism and poverty within the Asian American community. With that, they face the issue that there is no racial discrimination against Asian Americans due to the racial barrier being contextualized within a “black or white” framework. Another problem they face is mainstream America’s lack of awareness to the diversity of the Asian population, which causes a lot of misperceptions and misdirected racial hatred towards certain ethnicities within the Asian race. This causes the Pan-Asian community to not be supportive, unwilling to support each other, in order to avoid racism by avoiding being associated with that ethnicity just because they look alike. This causes the Asian American community and the ethnic groups within to be invisible to the American community as they lack organization and unification to have their voices heard.
Wong, Paul, Chienping Faith Lai, Richard Nagasawa, and Tieming Lin. 1998. “Asian Americans as a Model Minority: Self-Perceptions and Perceptions by Other Racial Groups.” Sociological Perspectives,41 (1): 95–118.
A survey completed by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) in 2000 founded that five percent of the 12 million Asian Americans in the United States had used illegal drugs in the past 12 months. Three percent of those studies were found to meet the criteria for a substance use disorder (Fong MD & Tsuang MD MS, 2007, p. 52). Fong Md and Tsuang MD MS state “There are some unique biopsychosocial aspects of the addictive disorders that impact the Asian American (AAPI) population. In regards to specific data, the most appears to be available in the area of alcohol and much less is available in regards to drugs...
In Sherman Alexie’s novel Indian Killer, there are many characters who struggle with mental disorders. Alexie states “She was manic-depressive and simply couldn’t take care of herself,” this is just one of the mental illnesses suffered in the book (212). Mental disorders are prevalent in the United States. All races are at risk of mental illness. In the article "Mental Health and Substance Abuse Characteristics Among a Clinical Sample of Urban American Indian/Alaska Native Youths in a Large California Metropolitan Area: a Descriptive Study" Daniel Dickerson and Carrie Johnson state “AI/ANs [American Indians/ Alaska Native] between the ages of 15 and 24 have the highest suicide rates in the United States compared to other racial/ethnic groups” (Dickerson and Johnson, 56). Native Americans are highly perceptible to mental illness due to the historical trauma their culture has endured.
United States Census Bureau. (2013). Asians fastest-growing race or ethnic group in 2012, census bureau reports. Retrieved on March 8, 2014 fromhttps://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb13-112.html
We’ve all heard it said that Asian Americans are good at math; anything involving science, technology, and medicine. They study all the time, work really hard, and live a version of the American dream many of us never thought to dream of. And of course, we know these stereotypes are dangerous and often untrue, but perhaps we still find ourselves buying into them. Ronald Takaki”, the ethnic studies expert, writes about the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than any other American minority group in his article “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority. Takaki refutes this idea by strategically, and somewhat effectively, using reason, statistics, and word choice to show that Asian Americans still face some of the same hardships and barriers