ABSTRACT
Health of the Asian American (AA) community is intimately entwined with their immigration history and experience. It is the fastest growing racial group in the country, growing over four times as fast as the total U.S. population and will more than double to over 47 million people by 2060. Despite this tremendous growth, AAs remain one of the most understudied racial groups in the country. The size and rapid growth of this community makes it important to focus on health and well-being challenges within this community. Despite the heterogeneity of this group they have shared values and experiences including experiences related to careers and educational goals, similarity in some cultural and normative values such as the emphasis on family, conforming to norms, etc., which makes it possible to evaluate overarching influences on health and well-being within the community. The next section in this chapter explores various important sociocultural characteristics of the community following by a consideration of some information about physical and mental health and spiritual health. The concluding section highlights important aspects to evaluate and focus on when dealing with the health of this community.
