142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

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Association between racial discrimination and self-rated health among immigrants in South Korea: The role of coping behavior against the discrimination

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Monday, November 17, 2014

Yugyun Kim , Department of Public Health Sciences, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Dainn Wie , National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, Japan
Carles Muntaner, PhD, MHS , Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, Dalla Lana School of Public Health & Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Hyunwoo Kim , Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Inseo Son, PhD , Department of Public Health Sciences, Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Seung-Sup Kim, MD, MPH, ScD , Department of Healthcare Management, Korea University College of Health Sciences, Seoul, South Korea
Backgrounds. Recently the number of immigrants has increased due to international marriage and labor migration in South Korea. However, no research has been conducted about the association between racial discrimination and health outcomes among immigrants in Korea.

Methods. We analyzed the cross-sectional data from ‘National Survey of Multicultural Families 2012’ to examine the association between racial discrimination and self-rated health among 14,763 immigrants in Korea. Racial discrimination was assessed using a single question, which immigrants could answer yes/no. ‘Yes’ group was dichotomized based on coping behavior against the discrimination: immigrants who asked for fair treatment (‘asking group’) and immigrants did not (‘not asking group’). Furthermore, we examined how the associations differ by gender or region of origin (from Asia Vs West Vs Others).

Results. Racial discrimination was significantly associated with poor self-rated health among ‘asking group’ (OR: 1.69, 95% CI: 1.41, 2.02) and ‘not asking group’ (OR: 1.48, 95% CI: 1.28, 1.71) compared to the immigrants without any experience of racial discrimination. After being stratified by the immigrants’ gender and region of origin, the association among ‘asking group’ remained significant for female (OR: 1.84, 95% CI: 1.51, 2.24) and Asian immigrants (OR: 1.66, 1.38, 2.00) whereas the association was attenuated and became non-significant for male immigrants (OR: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.59, 1.55) and immigrants from West  (OR: 0.53, 95% CI: 0.11, 2.49).

Conclusions. This is the first study to investigate the association between racial discrimination and health in South Korea. Asking for fair treatment among the discriminated may play a role in reducing the impact of racial discrimination on health among dominant group (male and Western immigrants) whereas the reduction was not observed among subordinate group (female and Asian immigrants).

Learning Areas:

Epidemiology
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Assess how racial discrimination is associated with poor self-rated health in South Korea. Evaluate the role of coping behavior against racial discrimination in the association between racial discrimination and health.

Keyword(s): Immigrant Health, Epidemiology

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a MPH student for epidemiology in Korea University. And I am interested in social determinants of health such as discrimination, employment status, and SES.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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