Self-rated Health Disparities Among Asian Americans: Mediating Roles of Education Level and Household Income

Abstract

Asian Americans represent an understudied racial category in health disparity research. Using data from the National Asian American Survey, we examined self-rated health (SRH) disparities in eight Asian subgroups compared to Whites, explored the moderating effect of nativity status, and investigated the mediating effect of socioeconomic status. None of the Asian subgroups fared better than Whites. Across Asian subgroups, South Asians, Japanese, and Filipinos had the best SRH, with Cambodians being the most disadvantaged. Nativity was a significant moderator in that SRH disadvantages were only manifested among immigrants for Chinese, Korean, Hmong, and Vietnamese and only among natives for Filipinos. For most groups showing SRH disadvantages, SES played partial mediating roles. Education showed a higher explanatory power than income for inter-ethnic SRH disparities. Contrary to popular perception, Asian Americans are not the model minority in terms of SRH. Cultural influences on SRH reporting biases were discussed.