Health acculturation of Asian migrants in the U.S.

ABSTRACT

Acculturation processes involve the development of language proficiency, cultural participation, and social relations. However, healthcare, an essential aspect of people’s life, is typically left out of the purview of understanding the acculturation process in academic literature. This study fills the gap by examining the acculturation process in the domain of healthcare among Asian migrants and proposes a concept of health acculturation. Based on qualitative interviews with Asian migrants in the U.S., this study proposes a five-dimensional health acculturation model encompassing health literacy, health beliefs and attitudes, health behaviors and practices, health systems, and health-related social networks/support. We argue that the model helps investigate the multifaceted health acculturation processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian migrants
• health acculturation
• health literacy
• qualitative interviewing

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Van Anh Nguyen Thi, a student research assistant, for assistance with recruiting and interviewing the Vietnamese participants in this study.

Ethics approvals

This study has been approved by the IRB of the first author’s institution and the approval number is 01042021. All the subjects have provided informed consent verbally at the beginning of interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.