This request is for a one-year pilot study of Asian elderly health status and health promotion behavior among three major Asian American populations in Chicago. The three major samples are to be drawn from Japanese, Chinese and Korean senior citizens residential facilities. The primary goal of the pilot study is to validate and to select from various research instruments, translated for use on these populations, in order to begin a limited modeling of the psychosocial parameters assessed in this population to explain its apparent superior health status, compared to the U.S. general population (by some measures), and to determine the impact of family, community and social support on the health and well being of Asian American elderly who live alone. This pilot study will be followed by a planned large community survey which will generate an authoritative and systematic dataset on the health status and health behavior of Asian American elderly from a major regional or national sample base. The proposal reviews the present state the of the arts in health research on Asian Americans in general, and elderly Asian American populations in particular, which, in general, leads us to believe that little is known inasmuch as the federal statistics on Asian American population are inadequately sampled with questionable validity on cross-cultural measures, and are generally unavailable to researchers and policy makers. The research plan has a built-in component which searches for the role of culture in all of its measures, as well as gradations of acculturation among respondents which may explain differential health status and health promotion behavior. In this regard the proposed study will supplement earlier studies on the role of acculturation of Japanese Americans in several major chronic illnesses. In addition to the proposed study, which places emphasis on the improvement of measurements rather than on rate estimates (which will be done at a later date with a major regional or a national sample), a conference will be held of some of the top health researchers and epidemiologists for the purpose of setting research agenda and of reviewing current methodological flaws. The conference will be financed by local resources and funding for it is not requested here in the present proposal. The pilot study is a collaborative effort of investigators from a national minority R and D center for Asian Americans, the Departments of Epidemiology and Community Health of the School of Public Health, and the University of Illinois Gerontology Center.
| Kim, K K; Yu, E S; Liu, W T et al. (1993) Nutritional status of Chinese-, Korean-, and Japanese-American elderly. J Am Diet Assoc 93:1416-22 |
