Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 160, Issue 2, February 2012, Pages 331-336.e1
The Journal of Pediatrics

Original Article
Physical and Mental Health Disparities among Young Children of Asian Immigrants

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2011.08.005Get rights and content

Objective

To examine physical and mental health functioning among Asian-American children of US-born and immigrant parents.

Study design

We used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 base-year public data file. The sample was restricted to 7726 Asian and US-born white children. Asian subgroups were created based on parents’ country of birth. Child physical and mental health was assessed based on multiple sources of data and measures. Analyses included multivariate linear and logistic regression.

Results

After adjusting for demographic and contextual differences, disparities were found for physical and mental health indicators. Children of foreign-born Asian families (from east, southeast, and south Asia) were at greater risk for poor physical health, internalizing problems, and inadequate interpersonal relationships compared with children of US-born white families.

Conclusion

There is little support for the “model minority” myth with regard to physical and mental health. Evidence of physical and mental health disparities among young Asian-American children and differing risk based on region of origin of immigrant parents suggests the need for culturally informed prevention efforts during early childhood.

Section snippets

Methods

Data were drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K) of 1998-1999 base-year public use data file. The ECLS-K study is a longitudinal study sponsored by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The study followed a nationally representative cohort of children from kindergarten through grade 5, using a multistage probability sample design to select a nationally representative sample of children attending kindergarten in

Group Differences in Financial, Social, and Human Capital

Table II (available at www.jpeds.com) presents group comparison results. In general, compared with the US-born white reference group, Asian families had relatively low financial capital. Asian families were more likely to be poor and to use social services, with these differences mostly accounted for by the south Asian and southeast Asian groups. In contrast, east Asian, US-born Asian, and mixed Asian families were not significantly different than US-born white families on most indicators of

Discussion

This study examined the physical and mental health of young Asian children to identify areas of disparities, while taking into account the financial, social, and human capital of families. In the domain of mental health, Asian children had greater self-control and were less likely to have externalizing problems at school compared with US-born white children. Given their cultural values of respect and social harmony,30 it is possible that Asian parents socialize their children with a greater

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    The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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