Modeling Poverty and Health for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander and Asian Ethnic Populations

Abstract

This study examined differences in poverty and health among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) and 6 disaggregated Asian ethnic subgroups and an aggregated Other Asian category. Participants were followed longitudinally for 2 years using data from 2009 to 2019 from the Current Population Survey, a monthly survey conducted by the Census Bureau. Having 2 years of data enabled the study to assess both prevalence of poverty and fair/poor health in only 1 of the 2 years and in both years. For NHPI, 13.5% were in poverty 1of the 2 years and 7.1% in both years. Asian ethnicities showed high variability ranging from a low of 6.4% for 1 year and 1.9% for 2 years among Asian Indians to 16.0% for 1 year and 6.3% for 2 years among Vietnamese. Fair/poor health also showed ethnic variability, made most apparent after age-sex adjustment in regression models. For poverty, after adjustment, Asian Indians, Filipinos and Japanese had significantly lower odds of being in poverty at least 1 year than NHPI. For having fair/poor health, Asian Indians and Japanese experienced lower odds than NHPI for both 1 and 2 years and Filipinos for 1 year, after age/sex adjustment. The results emphasize the diversity of Asian and Pacific Islander populations, the variability of poverty over time, and the importance of using disaggregated data to understand ethnic differences in poverty and health. These findings can be used to inform future modeling of social determinants on poverty and health among NHPI and Asian subgroups.

Keywords: Ethnic disaggregation; Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander; Poverty; Self-reported health.