Treating Asian Americans as a monolith when gauging the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in research in general, glosses over important differences across Asian ethnic subgroups. NYU Silver Associate Professor Doris Chang and PhD student Nari Yoo co-authored a recent Frontiers in Public Health article with NYU Steinhardt Professor Sumie Okazaki and doctoral students Christina Seowoo Lee and Aakriti Prasai that disaggregates data on COVID-19 stressors, discrimination, and mental health among various Asian American communities revealing critical points of diversity.
It is the first publication resulting from a study of Asian Americans’ resiliency and allyship in the time of COVID-19 that was funded by NYU Silver’s Office for Research Seed Grant Program.
The co-authors conducted an online survey of 620 Asian American adults in December 2020 regarding their experiences of COVID-19-related stress, direct and vicarious discrimination, and psychological outcomes during the first year of the pandemic. Rather than treating Asian Americans as a monolithic population they examined the data across various demographic factors, including ethnicity, “Chinese street race,” which they defined as “being Chinese or being mistaken as Chinese,” nativity, age, gender, and class.
Their findings reveal vastly different experiences and impacts of the first year of COVID-19 within the Asian American population. Among them:
South and Southeast Asian Americans reported higher levels of psychological distress than did East Asian Americans.
Asian Americans who were neither Chinese nor had been mistaken as Chinese reported more psychological distress than those who were Chinese themselves.
Although East Asian Americans reported less discrimination and distress in the group comparisons, East Asian Americans who were younger, had experienced greater pandemic life stress, and were directly targeted by anti-Asian racism were the most distressed within this group
Southeast Asian Americans’ levels of distress were also associated with younger age, stressful life events, and direct discrimination, but being female and being on public health insurance conferred additional risk in this group. In contrast, among South Asian Americans, neither direct nor vicarious discrimination were significantly associated with their distress; only younger age, health insurance status (i.e., public insurance), and stressful life events was associated with risk for greater psychological distress.
Across all three major ethnic subgroups (East Asian American, South Asian American, and Southeast Asian Americans), age remained a significant predictor for both psychological distress and worry, with younger Asian American adults reporting more mental health problems than older Asian American adults during the first year of COVID-19 pandemic.
Survey respondents who are women, younger, and U.S. born reported greater stress due to life events during COVID-19, greater vicarious discrimination, greater psychological distress, and more worry compared to those who are men, older, and foreign-born.
“Results highlight the variability in COVID-related experiences within the Asian American community, especially the significant levels of discrimination experienced by South Asian and Southeast Asian respondents in our survey,” said Dr. Chang. “These findings underscore the importance of research that systematically examines important subgroup differences within the broad category of Asian American.”
The full article Disaggregating the data: Diversity of COVID-19 stressors, discrimination, and mental health among Asian American communities is available with open access in Frontiers in Public Health.