Neighborhood Ethnic Composition and Self-rated Health Among Chinese and Vietnamese American Immigrants

Alice Guan; Jin E Kim-Mozeleski; Priyanka Vyas; Susan L Stewart; Ginny Gildengorin; Nancy J Burke; Kris Ma; Amber T Pham; Judy Tan; Qian Lu; Stephen J McPhee; Janice Y Tsoh

doi:10.1007/s10903-020-01041-2

Neighborhood Ethnic Composition and Self-rated Health Among Chinese and Vietnamese American Immigrants

J Immigr Minor Health. 2021 Jun;23(3):574-582. doi: 10.1007/s10903-020-01041-2.

Authors

Alice Guan^{1

2}, Jin E Kim-Mozeleski³, Priyanka Vyas⁴, Susan L Stewart⁵, Ginny Gildengorin⁶, Nancy J Burke^{7

8}, Kris Ma⁹, Amber T Pham⁹, Judy Tan¹⁰, Qian Lu¹¹, Stephen J McPhee⁶, Janice Y Tsoh^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA.
² Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
³ Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
⁴ Center for Tobacco Research and Education, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
⁶ Division of General Internal Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Public Health, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA.
⁸ Asian American Research Center on Health, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁹ Department of Psychology, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA.
¹⁰ Division of Prevention Science, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
¹¹ Department of Health Disparities Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
¹² Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, 401 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94143, USA. Janice.Tsoh@ucsf.edu.
¹³ Asian American Research Center on Health, San Francisco, CA, USA. Janice.Tsoh@ucsf.edu.

Abstract

Immigrants tend to live in areas with higher co-ethnic density, and the effect of neighborhood ethnic composition could be particularly salient for health. This study explored associations between neighborhood ethnic composition and self-rated health among Asian immigrants. We analyzed data collected at baseline from 670 Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants enrolled in a lifestyle intervention trial. Residential addresses were geocoded and combined with neighborhood socio-demographic profiles based on census data. We used generalized estimating equations to examine neighborhood ethnic composition and self-rated health. Independent of individual-level factors, living in neighborhoods more densely populated by whites was associated with poor/fair self-rated health. Neighborhood household income and density of participants' own ethnic group were not associated with poor/fair self-rated health. More research is warranted to disentangle reasons why Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants living in white-concentrated neighborhoods reported poorer self-rated health, including investigating effects of discrimination, relative deprivation, and availability of social resources.

Keywords: Asian American; Ethnic density; Neighborhood effects; Self-rated health.

MeSH terms

Asian*
China
Emigrants and Immigrants*
Ethnicity
Health Status
Humans
Residence Characteristics
White People

Abstract

MeSH terms

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