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A National Profile of Functional Limitations Among Asian Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, gby092, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby092

Link to Publication

Researcher(s): (Andy Sharma)

(2018)

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in the United States, yet little is known about their functional mobility. To overcome such a gap, this study examined the association between demographic/economic characteristics and functional limitations for middle-aged and older Asian Indians, Chinese, and Filipinos. Asian Indians appeared to have a poorer health profile for limitations in dressing, eating, walking, or working when compared with Chinese and Filipinos. A pronounced difference at older ages was also apparent for Asian Indians by gender and the likelihood of having any limitations increased much faster for Asian Indian women. For Chinese, there was a dramatic increase in functional limitations after age 75 (particularly for women) and the predicted probability for this subgroup approximated 20%. For Filipinos, men were more likely to have limitations. These findings raise interesting questions about the on-set of disability by age and gender for Asian subgroups. This brief report is the first to examine functional limitations in three of the largest and fastest-growing Asian American subpopulations in the United States during the past decade.