Social Capital and Smoking Among Asian American Men: An Exploratory Study

Asian Americans develop health complications at lower BMIs than other racial/ethnic groups. Given increasing overweight and obesity rates nationwide, growing numbers of Asian American men, and limited research on overweight and obesity in this population, understanding overweight and obesity differences across Asian subgroups of men is crucial to advancing health equity. This study examined overweight and obesity prevalence both among ethnic subgroups of Asian American men and compared to non-Hispanic White (NHW) men. Prevalence ratios were derived from 2002 to 2015 National Health Interview Survey data to determine associations between race/ethnicity and (a) overweight, and (b) obesity, across ( n = 221,376) racial/ethnic groups of men (Chinese; Filipino; Asian Indian; Other Asian; NHW). Overweight and obesity for all Asian subgroups were defined using Asian-specific BMI cut points. Adjusted overweight prevalence was higher across all Asian subgroups compared to NHW men, except Filipinos. No significant pairwise relationships were observed for overweight prevalence among Asian subgroups. Filipinos had higher adjusted obesity prevalence compared to NHW men. Comparing among Asian American men, Asian Indians and Other Asians had higher adjusted obesity prevalence relative to Chinese. Filipinos had higher adjusted obesity prevalence compared to all other Asian subgroups (Chinese; Asian Indian; Other Asian). The current findings highlight the need for use of (a) WHO-recommended Asian-specific BMI cut points and (b) data disaggregated by Asian American subgroup, to provide more accurate depictions of overweight and obesity rates and associated health risks. Accounting for subgroup differences is necessary to ensure Asian American men receive equitable, appropriate care.

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Violence, Hmong American Visibility, and the Precariousness of Asian Race

PMLA ◽

10.1632/pmla.2008.123.5.1752 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 123 (5) ◽

pp. 1752-1756 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Louisa Schein ◽

Ya-Megn Thoj

Keyword(s):

Asian Americans ◽

Asian American ◽

Virginia Tech ◽

Korean American ◽

American Student ◽

Asian Race ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Model Minorities ◽

Asian American Men ◽

Hmong American

When the murders at Virginia Tech in spring of 2007 began to be processed, by mainstream media and Asian American commentators alike, in tenuously racial terms as the un/intelligible acts of a Korean American student, Seung-hui Cho, some observers of media racialization recalled the spectacularizations of Chai Soua Vang, the Hmong hunter who killed six white hunters in the woods of Wisconsin in 2004. Were these events likely to be discursively linked, and if so what effect would they produce? Would they destabilize tropes of Asian American men as studious, reserved, effeminate model minorities? Would we see the rise, or the return, of a racial menace in the form of gun-toting, ruthless, killer Asian males, and what would be the fallout? What difference would it make to discursive homogenization that one of the killers was Hmong, a member of a group that has articulated awkwardly if at all with prevailing images of Asian Americans?

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