Applying an integrative health in all policies approach to advancing Asian American health

Background: Asian immigrant populations are considered a hard-to-reach population, a historically undercounted group. Asian immigrant populations in NYC and across the US are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group and becoming increasingly diverse with exponential growth in emerging subgroups making up the “Other Asian” category. Between 2000 and 2010, the US Asian community grew by 43% and in NYC, 30% – now totaling 13.9% of NYC’s population with 73% foreign-born. Working-age Asians saw the largest increase in poverty rates among racial/ethnic groups. One in three Bangladeshis lived in poverty, highest among all groups in NYC. While Asian Americans represent 19% of NYC’s racial/ethnic minorities, from 2006 and 2011 only 2.6% of all grant dollars intended to benefit racial/ethnic minorities were allocated for Asian Americans

Hard-to-reach populations are increasingly becoming part of the majority yet remain understudied and poorly understood despite high documented need. Multi-sectorial approaches like health in all policies (HiAP), a collaborative approach to improving the health of all people by incorporating health considerations into decision-making across health and non-health sectors and policy areas, is needed to bridge the knowledge and resource gap.

Methods: Current context of Asians in NYC and across US will be presented along with the case example of NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health (CSAAH) and the process and lessons learned in applying a HiAP approach that integrates multi-level strategies and frameworks (social determinants of health, CBPR) to advance the science of health disparities research

Results: Applying multi-level strategies and approaches have been key to CSAAH’s work in advancing the health of Asian Americans.

Conclusions: Multiple approaches, perspectives and frameworks–including CBPR (principles related to community engagement, capacity building, advocacy, and social change), HiAP, social determinants of health–are needed to address the health of Asian Americans and other underserved hard-to-reach populations.