Addressing Health Disparities Among Older Asian American Populations: Research, Data, and Policy

Asian Americans were the fastest-growing population segment in the United States in the last two decades. The population growth of all Asians was 34% from 2010 to 2019, compared with 6% for all Americans (Budiman, 2020). In the older population, aged 65 years and above, Asian Americans are also the fastest-growing minority group (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021). The older Asian American population was 2.5 million in 2019 and is projected to grow to 7.9 million by 2060. In 2019, Asian Americans made up 4.6% of the older population. By 2060, the percentage is projected to be 8% (Administration for Community Living, 2021). Asian Americans are very diverse in their nations of origins and languages, with more than 50 ethnicities and 100 different languages and dialects (Budiman, 2020). Most Asian Americans trace their roots to countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The following six origin groups account for the majority of the U.S. Asian population (85%): Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. Aside from Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, Asian Americans accounted for 31% of the U.S. older immigrant’s population and by the year 2055 will surpass Hispanics as the largest immigrant group (Mizoguchi et al., 2019), and they represent distinct cultural beliefs and customs, incomes, levels of education, geographic locations, religions, languages, immigration patterns, and levels of acculturation (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021). Thus, in this paper, the term Asian Americans did not include Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders.