Barriers to treatment
Health Disparities among Asian Americans face cultural barriers that may discourage or prevent them from being able to receive health care services which are available to them. Asian American usually deals with disease and illness a lot different than the rest of society. Asian Americans that speak very little English have difficulty understand the U.S. health system. Many Asian Americans feel as if their Doctors do not understand their culture and values. Asian American does not put their health at the top of their list and do not rate their care highly compared to the overall population. The Values and culture of the Asian Americans also plays a big factor in them receiving proper health care. Because Asian Americans tend to have a traditional approached to health care they do not consider their health to be a necessity. With Asian Americans not considering health be a prime factor that leads to untreatable conditions in the later stages of life.
Some of the health disparities that affect Asian American are:
Some of the health disparities that affect Asian American are:
- Cancer and cardiovascular disease are two of the leading causes of death.
- For Asian American women, cancer is the leading cause of death.
- Hepatitis B is one of the largest health treats for Asians which counts for over half of the deaths resulting from chronic Hepatitis B in the U.S.
- Mental health problems in the Asian community are extremely high, yet services are inadequate. Asian women aged at 65 years and over have the highest suicide rate in the county compared to other women of other ethnicity.
- Asian women also have a high risk of Osteoporosis.
- Asian Americans also have a higher risk of Tuberculosis
- Asian American youth through the grades of 7th and 12th have the highest increase in smoking rate of any racial and ethnic group