Is Asian Hate Just About Race? Religious Discrimination and Smoking Among Asian and Asian American Adults in the USA.

Abstract

Prior research has shown that experiencing religious discrimination is tied to adverse physical and mental health outcomes. However, less known is whether or not religious discrimination may influence one's risk of smoking. In particular, there is a paucity of research examining the impacts of religious discrimination on smoking for Asians in the United States, whose experience of religious discrimination is heavily racialized. To fill in these gaps, in this study, 356 Asian and Asian American adults living in the US were surveyed. The key results suggest that perceived religious discrimination was associated with a higher risk of smoking among Asians and Asian Americans. Meanwhile, this deleterious effect of religious discrimination does not vary by important sociodemographic variables, such as ethnicity, religious identity, gender, and acculturation. Surprisingly, once controlling for religious discrimination, racial discrimination was no longer associated with smoking. Therefore, when it comes to smoking, it may be possible that religion is a more hazardous source of minority stress than race for Asians and Asian Americans.