Asian American/Pacific Islander Health and Behavior

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) comprise the fastest growing group in the United States, yet knowledge about the status of this population[Page 73] is severely hampered by several factors: the invisibility of the population, the lack of data on the population as a whole as well as its constituent subgroups, the extreme diversity within the category AAPI, and assumptions about the health of this population, since little data exist to the contrary. The AAPI umbrella term encompasses persons whose familial origins are in the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Pacific Islands. Prior to 1965, AAPIs comprised less than 1% of the U.S. population. The 1965 removal of national quotas in the immigration law has resulted in triple-digit growth each decade until 1990. The past decade saw a 50% increase in the total population, and AAPIs now make up almost 4% of the U.S. population, more than 10 million people (see Table 1). Demographic predictions show that by 2020, 6% or 20 million Americans will be of AAPI heritage. Over 75% of AAPIs live in seven states (California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Washington), and by 2020, will be dispersed throughout the country.

Perhaps the most important note regarding this group is that the term Asian American and Pacific Islander is an ethnic gloss that aggregates more than 50 highly diverse national groups with very different beliefs, cultures, and, importantly, epidemiological patterns of health outcomes. Generalizations about this group as a whole are not valid. The health status of members of this population reflects wide betweenand within-group differences and identifies the groups at highest risk for morbidity and mortality from various diseases. Researchers, however, are limited by the critical lack of valid, disaggregated, population-based data on the various AAPI population groups for most diseases.