Ethnic Differences in Health and Cardiovascular Risk Factors of Asians in Arizona

This research is an anthology of a series of papers intended to describe the health state, healthcare experiences, healthcare preventive practice, healthcare barriers, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors of Asian Americans (AA) residing in Arizona (AZ). Asian Americans are known to be vulnerable populations and there is paucity of data on interventions to reduce CVD risk factors. An extensive literature review showed no available disaggregated health data of AA in AZ. The Neuman Systems Model guided this study. Chapter 1 elucidates the importance of conducting the research. It provides an overview of the literature, theory, and methodology of the study. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the results of a cross-sectional descriptive secondary analysis using the 2013, 2015, and 2017 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) datasets. The outcomes demonstrate the disaggregated epidemiological phenomenon of AA. There were variations in their social determinants of health, healthcare barriers, healthcare preventive practice, CVD risk factors, and healthcare experiences based on perceived racism. It highlighted modifiable and non-modifiable predictors of hypertension (HTN) and diabetes. Chapter 4 is an integrative review of interventions implemented to reduce CVD risks tailored for Filipino Americans. Chapter 5 summarizes the research findings. The results may provide the community of practicing nurses, researchers, and clinicians the evidence to plan, prioritize, and implement comprehensive, theoretically guided, and culturally tailored community-led primary and secondary prevention programs to improve their health outcomes. The data may serve as a tool for stakeholders and policy makers to advocate for public health policies that will elevate population health of AA or communities of color in AZ to be in line with non-Hispanic White counterparts.