Asian Hate, religion, and perceived changes in physical health: exploring the flip side of minority stress during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

Objectives

Prior research suggests that racism is associated with adverse mental health outcomes for Asians in the United States. Relatively less research has been conducted to examine the effects of racism on physical health, particularly the changes in physical health among Asians and Asian Americans. This study aims to fill in this gap in prior research.

Design

Survey was conducted via Qualtrics in March 2023. A panel sample of 356 Asian and Asian American adults from across the US was collected. Ordinary Least Squares Regression was employed to examine the interrelationships among racism, religion, and perceived changes in physical health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Results

Contrary to conventional wisdom, more frequent experience with blatant racism was associated with a perceived improvement in physical health after controlling for subtle racism, anxiety, acculturation, and various sociodemographic variables. Interestingly, this robust relationship was more significant among Asians who attended religious services more frequently. Additional three-way interactions revealed that the interaction between blatant racism and religious service attendance on perceived changes in physical health was more significant for US-born Asians and Asians of Indian or Japanese ethnicity.

Conclusion

Racism exerts a significant influence on physical health outcomes among Asians and Asian Americans. However, this relationship was contingent upon the specific aspect of racism and intersected with religiosity, acculturation, and ethnic identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• physical health
• religion
• Asian American

SDG KEYWORDS:

• Good health and well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statements

The data and other materials needed to duplicate and replicate the findings in the paper will be made available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Public Religion Research Institute: [Grant Number].