Going beyond national studies that often treat Asian Americans as a homogenous and relatively healthy group, a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum finds that certain subgroups of the nation’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are doing much worse than other subgroups in terms of health insurance coverage and access to health care.
Using data from two major government annual surveys, this analysis reveals substantial differences in the health care experiences of about a dozen subgroups of the nation’s estimated 13 million Asian Americans and more than half-million Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders.
The analysis finds that, in general, the health status of Asian Pacific Americans tends to be better than that of other racial and ethnic groups. They are less likely to rate their health status as fair or poor. Asian Pacific Americans also have lower death rates from heart disease, HIV/AIDS and cancer compared to members of other racial and ethnic groups, but they have higher mortality rates for certain types of cancer, such as stomach and liver.
The proportion of nonelderly who are uninsured varies widely, ranging from 31 percent of Koreans, 24 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and 21 percent of Vietnamese, to 12 percent of Japanese and Asian Indians and 14 percent of Filipinos. In comparison, 12 percent of nonelderly non-Hispanic whites are uninsured.
Nonelderly Koreans are the subgroup least likely to have employer-sponsored health coverage (49 percent), while Asian Indians have the highest rate of employer-sponsored health coverage (77 percent). Vietnamese adults are twice as likely to report being in fair or poor health (15 percent) as the healthiest subgroup, Japanese adults (8 percent).
