Minor Aging: Social and Cultural Determinants of Health and Aging among Older Foreign-Born Asian Americans
Choe, Su
Citations
Abstract
Population aging is a global phenomenon, and a significant proportion of older adults in the U.S. are immigrants, particularly older Asian immigrants who become Asian Americans. Despite being the fastest-growing ethnic minority, there is limited knowledge about the challenges faced by older foreign-born Asian Americans. Using data from the 2015 Asian American Quality of Life (AAQoL) survey, this dissertation adopts a three-article format to examine the aging challenges among this population. The first article investigates how socioeconomic status and acculturation factors influence health and quality of life among older foreign-born Asian Americans. The second article explores the impact of social stressor—such as perceived discrimination—and cultural, ethnic, and family cohesion on these same outcomes. The third article integrates the predictors from the first two articles to explore how self-rated health and quality of life, shaped by socioeconomic status, acculturation, social stressor, and cultural cohesion, affect the willingness of older Asian Americans to utilize nursing homes and make decisions regarding aging-in-place. Here, self-rated health and quality of life serve as mediators, while the willingness to use nursing homes is the final outcome. Collectively, these articles aim to address major health equity challenges and propose interventions to reduce racial health disparities in the aging process of Asian Americans.
