Clinical research funding continues to lag for the U.S. population of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, even though the nation’s largest biomedical funding agency has pledged to prioritize research on diverse populations, a new study from Oregon State University shows.
“We looked at how this commitment has translated to funding and we found that things really haven’t changed,” said Lan Doan, a doctoral candidate in public health at OSU.
“Population projections indicate we are going to be a very diverse America,” she said. “But if we don’t recognize the diversity with the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations, we’re not going to have a good picture of the health outcomes for these groups.”
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are the fastest-growing racial/ethnic group in the United States and represent more than 50 countries or cultures of origin. But Asians have often been viewed as a model minority — a stereotype indicating they don’t face societal barriers, including health disparities, compared to other minority groups because they are highly educated and wealthy. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations are either combined with Asian Americans or excluded from studies altogether, despite the fact that they are distinct racial/ethnic groups.
Lumping these diverse populations together can hide real differences when it comes to health issues, Doan said. When all Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are lumped together, adult rates of liver cancer are double those of non-Hispanic white adults. But when the data is further broken down, incidence of liver cancer is seven times higher for Laotian men and nine times higher for Laotian women.
Even things like smoking rates can vary widely across groups within the larger population. Social differences, such as how and why a population first moved to the U.S. in large numbers, also can influence health, the researchers said.
“There are ethnic and cultural groups that need more tailored health interventions,” Doan said. “Public health is not one size fits all.”
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