The Overlooked Burden of Food Insecurity among Asian Americans: Results from the California Health Interview Survey.

Monideepa Becerra,Benjamin Becerra,Salome Mshigeni

doi:10.3390/ijerph15081684

Abstract

Objective: Food insecurity remains a major public health issue in the United States, though lack of research among Asian Americans continue to underreport the issue. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and burden of food insecurity among disaggregated Asian American populations. Methods: The California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey, was used to assess the prevalence of food insecurity among Asian American subgroups with primary exposure variable of interest being acculturation. Survey-weighted descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable robust Poisson regression analyses, were conducted and alpha less than 0.05 was used to denote significance. Results: The highest prevalence of food insecurity was found among Vietnamese (16.42%) and the lowest prevalence was among Japanese (2.28%). A significant relationship was noted between prevalence of food insecurity and low acculturation for Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese subgroups. Language spoken at home was significant associated with food insecurity. For example, among Chinese, being food insecure was associated with being bilingual (prevalence ratio [PR] = 2.51) or speaking a non-English language at home (PR = 7.24), while among South Asians, it was associated with speaking a non-English language at home was also related to higher prevalence (PR = 3.62), as compared to English speakers only. Likewise, being foreign-born also related to being food insecure among Chinese (PR = 2.31), Filipino (PR = 1.75), South Asian (PR = 3.35), Japanese (PR = 2.11), and Vietnamese (PR = 3.70) subgroups, when compared to their US-born counterparts. Conclusion: There is an imperative need to address food insecurity burden among Asian Americans, especially those who have low acculturation.

Highlights

The Asian American population is one of the fastest growing minority groups in the UnitedStates [1], yet, little research on health disparities exists for the group
In this study we aimed to address this gap in the literature, by evaluating the period prevalence of food insecurity among disaggregation Asian American population using the largest state health survey
While evaluation of the burden of food insecurity among minority populations is prevalent in the empirical body of literature, little assessment exists among the Asian American population

Summary

Introduction

The Asian American population is one of the fastest growing minority groups in the United. States [1], yet, little research on health disparities exists for the group. One potential reason has been attributed to the model minority myth, which assumes Asians have unparalleled achievements in education and success [2], leading to the assumption that the population suffers little health disparities. Studies demonstrate that such a myth has led to internalized racialism, further resulting in negative attitudes towards seeking mental health care and increased psychological distress [3]. Asian American data has been historically aggregated to present a homogeneous representation, resulting in the masking of more vulnerable subpopulations. Res. Public Health 2018, 15, 1684; doi:10.3390/ijerph15081684 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion