Place Matters. Data Matters. AA & NHPI Hotspots

Place determines health and wellth. The borders of where one lives works, plays and prays, can divide people by sickness and wellness, by poverty and wealth. While there is a lot of attention to place-based public health interventions, there has been little focus on the nation’s fastest growing populations - Asian Americans (AAs) and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders (NHPIs).

We examine nine of the top ten Asian American hotspots in America with a high concentration (>30%) of AAs: Daly City, Fremont, Sunnyvale, Irvine, Santa Clara, Garden Grove, Torrance, San Francisco, and San Jose. For NHPIs, we examine San Mateo County, one of the top ten counties in America with a high proportion of NHPIs (>2%), and focus on zip codes within San Mateo County with the highest concentration of NHPIs.

Using a brand new neighborhood edition of healthography tool, we will look at the healthography of 15-20 health indicators, such as asthma, diabetes, obesity, food insecurity, will be estimated for these places. The tool combines data from a health interview survey with local demographic data, and employs small area estimation to produce health estimates at the zip code level. Each AA & NHPI “hotspot” health analysis will be combined with a Health Equity profile defined by a host of indicators that includes mortality, education, income, poverty, employment and housing statistics, and socio-ecological features (i.e., the level of segregation, and the availability of quality air, green spaces and marketplaces to promote healthy choices). We believe that linking health equity measures with health statistics in the places where AANHPI communities live will stimulate place-based strategies for improving the health and wellth of AAs & NHPIs. Micro-targeting is not only essential for understanding, and improving AA & NHPI health and wellth, it is essential to “becoming the healthiest nation in a generation.”