Older Asian American adults report lower life satisfaction

A recent survey showed that older Asian American adults in California reported lower life satisfaction and received less social and emotional support than older adults from other populations.

“Clinical and public health professionals have been gearing up to take care of the growing aging population, yet not much is known on how best to support the needs of older adults,” Riti Shimkhada, PhD, a senior research scientist at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, told Healio.

“Even less is known about the unmet needs of Asian older adults in the United States,” she said. “We hoped to identify any unmet needs related to well-being of the older adult Asian population in this study as a first step to being able to better design services and solutions centered around what communities might be lacking.”

The researchers reviewed survey responses from 8,158 adults aged 65 years and older who lived in California in 2018. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.

Shimkhada and colleagues reported that 54% of all older Asian American adults said they were satisfied with their life, compared with 80% of all other older adults. In addition, 56% of older Asian American adults and 80% of all other older adults said they “usually or always” received social and emotional support.

A subgroup analysis of the responses from older Asian American adults showed that life satisfaction was highest for Filipino respondents (77%), followed by Chinese respondents (48%), Vietnamese respondents (47%) and Korean respondents (40%). A greater proportion of Vietnamese respondents said they received social and emotional support (65%), compared with Filipino respondents (59%), Chinese respondents (57%) and Korean respondents (30%).

Among respondents of other races and ethnicities, older white adults most frequently reported that they “usually or always” had social or emotional support (83.3%; 95% CI, 81.1-85.5) and were currently satisfied with life (82.7%; 95% CI, 80.5-84.9). Seventy-two percent (95% CI, 65.6-78.4) of older Latino adults reported “usually or always” having social or emotional support and 74.3% (95% CI, 67.5-81.1) reported current satisfaction with life. These percentages were 66.4 (95% CI, 52.1-80.8) and 70.3 (95% CI, 55.6-85), respectively, among older Black adults.

Riti Shimkhada

“We were not entirely surprised by the findings,” Shimkhada said. “It is a common misconception that Asians in the United States in general are doing better than other race/ethnic groups.”

Although the survey was limited to adults in California, Shimkhada said that a national survey would likely yield similar results.

“A larger study would be important to be able to better identify potential differences between Asian communities we were not able to examine due to small sample size, such as the South Asian population,” she added.

She also said that it remains unclear how COVID-19 may impact the measures and outcomes of the current study.

“Asians have been faced with an increase in discrimination, aggression and violence since the pandemic. Attacks on Asian older adults that have been publicized in the media have undoubtedly increased levels of anxiety,” she said. “However, there are also countervailing forces that may have had the effect of improving social support for older Asian adults. We have seen communities respond to help older Asian adults, for example, pairing volunteers to escort older adults when they go out.”

According to Shimkhada, older Asian American adults tend to live in mixed-generation families; therefore, working from home may have decreased this population group’s feelings of loneliness.

She encouraged clinicians with patients who are older Asian American adults to spend more time with them to ascertain who needs additional help and offer resources targeted to the patient’s needs.

“This means integrating with community organizations, social workers, case managers or psychiatrists,” Shimkhada continued. “Community-based action might [include] providing mental health screenings and support groups at community centers. Families may also benefit from education on identifying anxiety, depression and other mental health strains among older adults.”