Asian Americans are the fastest growing and fastest aging U.S. population, and occupy both extremes of socioeconomic and health indices. Using the 2016 NYCgov dataset, multilevel logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship of poverty, acculturation and neighborhood-level variables with disability for different ethnic groups of Asian older adults (Chinese, South Asian, Filipino, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese) in New York City. Findings indicated that South Asian older adults had higher odds for disability compared to other ethnic groups. Living in a neighborhood with higher percentages of persons of the same ethnicity was protective for Chinese older adults only. There is an important opportunity for interprofessional collaborations through education, awareness, screening and intervening to enhance systems of care for Asian older adults. Social workers can play a pivotal role in providing key linkages to form interprofessional solutions and shared efforts to address the needs of this understudied and under-resourced population. Future research is needed to better understand how ethnic enclaves are defined, and how they can benefit different ethnic groups of vulnerable Asian older adults.
Keywords: Asian Americans; disability; ethnicity; neighborhood context; poverty.