AAPI Heritage Month

Coming up in May is AAPI Heritage month. AAPI stands for: Asian American and Pacific Islander. Knowing that, I’d like to draw your attention to an incredibly important issue that is often not talked about at all, especially in media. The glaring health disparities and health risks that Asian Americans face.

Asian Americans have their own share of higher prevalence of preexisting conditions. According to Pfizer, “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health report that Asian Americans have a high prevalence of the following conditions and risk factors: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS, smoking, tuberculosis, and liver disease.” Though there is information about these disparities and concerns, it is extremely underreported by the media and other medical journals and furthermore, extremely understudied. According to the 2020 Census, “Approximately 19.9 million people (6% of all respondents) identified as Asian alone in 2020, up from 14.7 million people (4.8%) in 2010. “ The Asian population in America is growing rapidly, which makes it even more important to start having conversations and dialogue, both in the media, and also in the medical community.

Increasing conversation around these health disparities and pre existing conditions is also important because it can help Asians get the care they need, medically, as well as shed a light on the many issues that our medical system should start accounting for. For example, the NIMH(National Institute on Minority Health) writes that “more than 70 percent of Asian Americans are foreign-born, and thus many have limited English proficiency” and that this also leads to the fact that “Asian Americans have the most difficulty understanding instructions in a doctor’s office”. It is important to start moving our healthcare system towards inclusion of everyone. Furthermore, starting dialogue at all can help Asians seek much needed care as NIMH writes once again, “[another challenge that Asians face] include differing cultural beliefs and behaviors and unfamiliarity with the Western health system” which leads to the fact that “that more than half of Asian Americans with diabetes don’t know they have the disease”.

This issue hits close to home because as an Asian American, our community has been ignored time and time again by the medical community leading to lack of data, lack of inclusive service, etc… With the AAPI Heritage month coming May, I hope you can keep this in mind and also help the Asian American community move forward.

By: Alan Lu