Asian Americans

Tobacco use and dependence in Asian Americans: A review of the literature

Culture, race, and ethnic groups strongly contribute to differences in substance use and dependence. Research on addiction in certain groups, however, needs to be improved. The group I researched was Asian Americans. The source I looked at mostly discussed the amount of information that currently exists for this specific group of people and how accurate the existing research is. A detailed search was done to find literature from various years that relates to the topic being studied (Asian Americans and specific subgroups). Results showed that, although the amount of research being done on addiction in Asian Americans has increased over the past 30 years, most of the studies were done on males. There was also a biased towards which subgroups had more research. Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans have been the main focus of existing research and studies, leaving groups such as Filipino, Pakistani, and Thai Americans under reported. Even worse is the gender bias. While men are understudied in select subgroups of Asian Americans, women are understudied in all of them (Kim).  

This article strongly relates to our reading because the book specifically mentions the difficulties that exist with research for this group and why these problems exist. Research cannot be done on just Asians as a whole because that group encompasses way too many different cultures that are truly very different from each other. In total there are 30 different Asian ethnic groups and on top of that there are 21 different Pacific Islander ethnic groups. Each group comes from a different origin and therefore each subgroup is affected by addiction in different ways. When it comes to these groups being under researched the book agrees with the article I found on many points (Van Wormer). Some of the main reasons for the lack of information on substance dependence among these groups include

·         These groups have been ignored and overlooked when studies were being completed.

·         Services are not directed towards these cultures, which leads to lack of treatment.

·         Research that has been conducted on these groups may be inaccurate.

·         Assumptions are often made without and support or evidence regarding drug use by Asian Americans.

-(Van Wormer)

References

Kim, S. S., Ziedonis, D., & Chen, K. W. (2007). Tobacco use and dependence in Asian Americans: A review of the literature. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 9(2), 169-184. doi:10.1080/14622200601080323

Van Wormer, Katherine. Addiction Treatment: a Strengths Perspective.