Anti-Asian hate's impact on the AANHPI communities is greater than we think

About 1 in 5 Asian Americans in California worried "all the time" or "often" about being a victim of a hate crime, with worries especially high among Filipino Americans, according to a new study.

The AAPI Data Project at UC Riverside and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (CHPR) recently released a comprehensive report revealing economic hardships, negative health outcomes and a rise in hate incidents experienced by Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"California's investment to increase the available data on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities is essential in improving public understanding of the needs, barriers, and challenges that AA and NHPI communities face," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, professor of public policy at UC Riverside and founder of AAPI Data. "We hope that policymakers as well as those in charge of policy implementation will use the findings and recommendations in this report to create better programs and services that address the diversity in needs and challenges faced by AA and NHPI communities in California."

One of the key findings of the study, the Post-Pandemic Agenda for Community Well-being among Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Californiais that information about access to heath and mental health needs is not getting to the AANHPI communities resulting in poor medical outcomes and high suicide rates

Using data from UCLA CHPR's 2018–2021 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), as well as the 2019 and 2021 American Community Survey, the study found that Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders experienced difficulties accessing health and mental health services, as well as affordable and quality housing, education, and food.

The impact was vast in health outcomes, with about 3 in 10 Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in California reported difficulties in accessing health services, and 1 in 4 experiencing difficulties in accessing mental health services. Cost was the most common reason for difficulty in accessing health services, with 7 in 10 experiencing this financial burden, however a lack of knowledge about available options was the top reason for difficulty in accessing mental health services.

The Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have grappled with a rise in violence in recent years—from the anti-Asian hate incidents that occurred during the pandemic to the recent back-to-back mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay. 

The 2021 CHIS, which added questions on attitudes about gun violence, found that Asian Americans and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders reported the highest proportions of concern about gun violence: 66% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and 65% of Asian Americans said they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" about gun violence, more than double the percentage of white adults (30%).

Economic hardship was another overwhelming issue for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in California. Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, each saw higher poverty rates in 2021, compared to 2019. According to the study, more than half of respondents indicated that they had difficulty accessing high-quality or affordable housing due to financial cost and 36% said they had difficulty accessing quality or affordable food.

"After studying the emotional and economic impacts brought on by the pandemic over the last three years, it's clear there is a significant burden on Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities in California," Ninez A. Ponce, UCLA CHPR director and CHIS principal investigator, said. "These findings suggest an urgent need to address the gaps in access to health care, which have gotten perpetually worse as the pandemic continues to take a toll on this community."

Another major cause for concern is the ongoing issue of hate incidents and discrimination against the Asian American community. Data show 1 in 4 Asian Americans had ever been a victim of a hate crime or incident in their lifetime, and 1 in 5 said they worried all the time or often about being a victim.

To address racial injustices and economic inequities within the state's system, researchers suggest that policymakers act against such prejudices by creating a more equitable framework for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders across the state.

Recommendations include a focus on addressing inequities across the mental health system, improving awareness and access to public and government programs, investing in culturally competent care and services, increasing partnerships between state and community-based organizations, building additional language access, and widening access to data on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.

The report is part of a series of reports by AAPI Data and the California Health Interview Survey focused on measuring the social, economic, and health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The goal is to highlight the gaps in access to health, mental health, and social services for those communities.

"During the COVID-19 pandemic, our community faced not only a major increase in hate crimes and incidents, but struggled financially and could not access care," said California Assemblymember Phil Ting, chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.

"When I championed the API Equity Budget in 2021, we knew that the AAPI Data Project needed resourced to research our community's necessities. The recommendations from this report help us understand the hardships that the API community is facing, and helps us identify service gaps in order for the government and our community partners to address these needs."

Other highlights of the report:

HEALTH

• Between 2019 and 2021, Hispanics/Latinos and Asian Americans had statistically significant increases in reports of delays in health care due to system and provider barriers.
  
• By 2021, Asian Americans and NHPIs were more likely than Whites to rely on community-based health care. 
• About 3 in 10 Asian Americans in California reported difficulties in accessing health services, and cited financial cost, lack of awareness about options, lack of insurance, and limited English proficiency as the most salient challenges.
  
• Doctors, government health agencies, and friends/family remain by far the most trusted sources of medical information for Asian Americans. Only 37 percent of Asian Americans trusted social media apps for medical information.​
  

MENTAL HEALTH AND COMMUNITY WELL-BEING: 

• Suicide ideation increased between 2018/19 and 2020/21 for Asian Americans, as for many other groups, with increases especially pronounced among non-U.S. citizens.
  
• Yet the share of Asian Americans receiving mental health services did not change before and after the onset of COVID. 
  
• Major barriers for finding mental health services include lack of knowledge about available options, financial cost, lack of insurance, and limited options in their neighborhood. 
  
• Fear of gun violence is a significant contributor to community anxiety and the lack of well-being.
  
• Even before the 2023 shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay, California, Asian Americans and NHPIs were the groups most worried about becoming a victim of gun violence.
  

EXPERIENCES WITH HATE 

• One in 4 Asian Americans in California reported having ever experienced a hate crime or hate incident, with Southeast Asians reporting the highest levels of experiences with hate. 
  
• Among those who had ever experienced hate crimes or hate incidents, most had done so before 2020.
  
• Asian American men were significantly more likely than Asian American women to be threatened or harassed (16% vs.10%, respectively) and also more likely to have been mocked or had offensive physical gestures made towards them (15% vs. 9 %, respectively).
  
• About 1 in 5 Asian Americans in California worried "all the time" or "often" about being a victim of a hate crime, with worries especially high among Filipino Americans.
  

A mural in New York City.

SOCIAL DETERMINANTS

• Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders all saw higher poverty rates, and lower labor force participation rates, in 2021 than in 2019.
  
• The labor force participation rate for Indian Americans increased slightly between 2019 and 2021, while Chinese, Filipino, and Vietnamese Americans saw statistically significant decreases.
  
• The share of NHPI homeowners with mortgages who were burdened with housing cost (spending 30% or more of household income on housing) increased from 35% to 45% between 2019 to 2021.
  
• Asian Americans in California report relying mostly on friends or family members for assistance in accessing quality or affordable housing, with government agencies a distant second.
  
• About 2 in 5 Asian American respondents indicated that they had difficulty finding quality or affordable education, with financial cost as the most common reason across groups.
  

"AAPI Data's report, Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Health, Mental Health, and Social Services for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders shines a bright light on the alarming health disparities of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities and point to the social determinants of health and mental health that we, California, must collectively and immediately address," said Nkauj Iab Yang, director of the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs.

"Now, more than ever, we must work together to change state policies and programs to meet the needs of the AANHPI communities. This is life or death, and we cannot afford any more lives taken prematurely in order to take action."

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

UCLA researchers receive grants to study needs of California’s AANHPI communities

Clockwise from top left: Ninez Ponce, Saba Waheed, Jennifer Wagman and Cindy Sangalang.

By Emily Jo Wharry
Originally published at UCLA Newsroom

Four UCLA research teams were awarded a total of more than $560,000 in grants from the AAPI Data project at UC Riverside. The awards will support social science research on the needs of California’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.


The grants are funded by a $10 million allocation to AAPI Data provided by the California State Legislature in 2021, part of the state’s $166.5 million Asian and Pacific Islander Equity Budget.

The grants were awarded to:

• Saba Waheed and colleagues at the UCLA Labor Center received $149,000 for an in-depth study examining the nail salon industry in California. The project is a collaboration with the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and Professor Preeti Sharma of Cal State Long Beach.

• Cindy Sangalang of UCLA’s departments of social welfare and Asian American studiesreceived $61,000 for a project examining how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the physical, economic and social well-being of Filipino American workers.

• Ninez Ponce and colleagues at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research received $161,000 for a study to address the gap in data for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities through the construction of a new measure to better indicate the needs of the state’s NHPI population.

• Jennifer Wagman and colleagues at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health’s community health sciences department received $191,000 to assess experiences of COVID-related sexual harassment, violence and anti-Asian racism among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students throughout the University of California system.

UCLA study: COVID-19 related anti-Asian hate continues to rise

STOPASIANHATE GRAPHIC

Hate acts against California's Asian Americans are continuing to rise even after 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study released by UCLA.

It has been well documented that this latest surge of anti-Asian hate began at the same time the pandemic took hold of the world in 2020 fueled by the racist rantings of Donald Trump linking the coronavirus to China. 

More than 1 in 12 (8%) Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) adults in California experienced a hate incident due to COVID-19. Of those who experienced a hate incident, 84% said they sustained verbal abuse or insults, says a report by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research’s California Health Interview Survey (CHIS).

“The California Health Interview Survey 2020 data found that about 4% of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders had been treated unfairly because of their race/ethnicity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data released today show that percentage has doubled,” says Ninez A. Ponce, UCLA CHPR director and CHIS principal investigator. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020, Stop AAPI hate has collected over 11,500 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans. California, which has the largest AANHPI population in the US, led the states with the largest number of reported incidents, at over 4,000. New York came in second, with about 1,800, according to Stop AAPI Hate's latest report.

The UCLA survey, released on Sept. 20, also found that more than 1 in 5 (22%) AANHPI adults had witnessed another AANHPI person being treated unfairly due to their race/ethnicity. The findings are part of a series of COVID-related questions asked of AANHPI adults between February and May 2022, and made available on the CHIS Preliminary COVID-19 Estimates Dashboard.

Other key findings about the impact COVID-19 had on AANHPI, include.

• ​About 1 in 2 Asian (50%) and Black or African American (52%) adults and more than 1 in 3 (37%) of Latinx adults said they always wore a mask, compared to 1 in 5 (20%) white adults. 
• 45% of adults in Los Angeles County said they always wore a mask when leaving their homes compared to 14% of adults in Northern/Sierra counties and the Sacramento area. Among other California regions, 20% of adults in the Central Coast, 25% of adults in other Southern California regions, 36% of adults in the San Joaquin Valley and Greater Bay Area always wore a mask.
• ​13% of AANHPI adults had difficulties performing work due to poor internet or lack of computer. 
• AANHPI adults were more positive about the local government’s response to COVID-19 compared to the federal government: Nearly 2 in 3 (64%) AANHPI adults said they agree or strongly agree that the local government had done a good job managing the COVID-19 outbreak compared to 50% who agree or strongly agree that the federal government had done a good job. About 1 in 4 (24%) of AANHPI adults disagree or strongly disagree that the federal government had done a good job. 
• Among AANHPI adults who experienced financial difficulties due to COVID-19, 54% had trouble paying utilities and 49% had trouble paying rent.

In addition to the AANHPI data, California Health Interview Survey released June 2022 findings from a series of COVID-19 questions on Californians’ experiences with long COVID, views on vaccines and boosters, personal and financial impacts of the pandemic, and risk reduction behaviors.

About 1 in 3 (33%) California adults who have had COVID-19 are experiencing long COVID symptoms. Lower-income adults were more than twice as likely to experience long COVID compared to the highest-income adults: 52% of adults at 0–99% of the federal poverty level (FPL) and 53% of adults at 100–199% FPL had long COVID, compared to 22% of adults at 300% FPL and above.

More California adults went maskless in June 2022, with more than 1 in 5 (22%) California adults saying they never wore a mask when leaving their home in the past week, compared to 8% who never wore a mask in February–March.

“Hate incidents can cause long-term psychological and physical trauma," says Ponce,  "so it’s critical that we provide timely data on often overlooked racial and ethnic groups so that decision-makers can take steps to put an end to hate incidents in California." 

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

OSCARS: Hollywood struggles to overcome the white, male perspective

Of the 20 nominations for Oscar's major acting awards this year, not a single one is an AANHPI actor. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

As America eagerly views the Academy Awards tonight (March 27), Hollywood appears to find it hard to swallow that the today's audience is not the same audience of the last century. Two new studies found that people of color helped keep the movie industry afloat during the pandemic even as the Oscar's acting categories showed a lack of diversity in casting their products, according to studies from two L.A.-based universities, UCLA and USC.

A large percentage of the movie business’s box office revenue and home viewership was driven by consumers of color in 2021, according to UCLA’s latest Hollywood Diversity Report. The report examines the 252 top-performing English-language films — based on box office receipts and streaming data — during the second year that the COVID-19 pandemic forced movie studios to adopt unconventional release strategies. 

The coronavirus pandemic upended the theatrical film market in 2020 and 2021, but despite the industry upheaval, a new report shows that at least a few things haven’t changed in popular films: It's still a White man's world.

At the same time, the movie-making capitol of the world is stuck in the mud in producing films with characters that look like the majority of moviegoers. 

“We cannot underestimate the positive impact the 32 movies with leads and co-leads of color released in 2021 can have on young audiences of color,” said Katherine L. Neff, lead author of a research brief entitled "Inequality in 1,500 Popular Films" out of the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

“To be able to see yourself on screen, and to see yourself and people that look like you as the hero or leader in a variety of different films was not an option when I was younger. People of color deserve to be at the heart of storytelling.”

Of the 100 top films in 2021, according to the USC report, only 32% featured an underrepresented lead/co lead. This figure is slightly higher than 2020 when only 28% of movies had a lead/co lead of color. 

2021 findings are still notably below proportional representation, as people of color make up 40% of the U.S. population. The 32 movies depicted a total of 34 non-white leads/co leads. 

• 32.3% (or 11) of the leads/co leads were Asian, 
• 32.3% (11) were Black, 
• 8.8% (3) were Hispanic/Latino, 
• 2.9% (1) were Middle Eastern/North African, and 
• 23.5% (8) were Multiracial/Multiethnic

That's sparse pickings and might be one of the reasons there are no AAPI actors nominated for an Academy Award considering the hundreds of films made and distributed by Hollywood studios and independents.

To increase the likelihood for AANHPI actors receive more accolades such as the Oscars, the actors have to be given substantial roles in which they can shine beyond the martial artist, good friend, wise mentor or comic relief. And there needs to more of them, not just one or two projects that stand out above the rest. Hollywood movie makers need to offer a wider choice of films besides the kung fu superheroes, computer nerds and math wizards offered to audiences.

Not that outstanding performances can come out of such characterizations or stereotypical genre. There just hasn't been any, thus far.

'Drive My Car' is Oscar contender

This year, there is no Crazy Rich Asians, Minari or The Farewell that the AAPI fans can hang their hopes to in the Oscar races.

Drive My Car, which is deservedly nominated for Best Picture and Best Foreign Feature, is, alas, a Japanese film, not an American movie. It stars Japanese actors, not Japanese Americans. 

Disney's Raya and the Last Dragon, which takes place in  a fictional Southeast Asian country and features a voice cast of actors of Asian descent including Daniel Dae Kim, Gemma Chan, Kelly Marie Tran and Awkwafina, is up for Best Animated Feature.

In 2020, Parasite won a slew of awards including Best Picture and Best Director, but that groundbreaking movie was from South Korea.

In 2021, Best Picture and Best Director went to Nomadland, an American film directed by Chloe Zhao, who had to reaffirm her Chinese citizenship to assuage her critics in her homeland.

The UCLA report’s authors noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was F9: The Fast Saga, which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.

“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.

“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation,” continues the UCLA study.

Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.

“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.

Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.

“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”

For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.

“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”

Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.

Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including Raya and the Last Dragon, Coming 2 America, Vivo and Mortal Kombat.

“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films. For women of color, directing and writing opportunities are really the final frontier.”

Of the filmmakers who directed the movies analyzed in the report, 21.8% were women and 30.2% were people of color. Among the screenwriters for those films, 33.5% were women and 32.3% were people of color. Diversity in both jobs increased incrementally from 2020.

Out of the 76 minority directors of 2021’s top films, just 23 were women. And among Black, Latino and multiracial directors, at least twice as many were men as women in each racial or ethnic classification.

Although there was gender parity among Asian American and Native American directors, the overall numbers of directors from those groups were very small: just 17 Asian American directors and and just two Native American directors were represented in 2021. Among white directors, 32 were women and 143 were men, says the UCLA study.

Gender bias clearly evident

Across town, the USC brief also concluded that although the number of popular films with female and underrepresented leads has not significantly declined from 2019, there is still room for growth.

"To encourage continued change, one important factor that must be countered is the notion that economic 'risk' is tied to identity," says the USC study.

As USC's previous studies indicate, the presence of a girl/woman in a lead/co lead role does not significantly impact domestic or international revenue. 

Films with underrepresented leads/co leads may actually earn more money domestically than films with only white leads.7 Yet as the data reveal, even if companies are aware that they may not lose money by being inclusive, they have not fully embraced inclusion either. 

In the same study, there were differences in the size of production budgets, amount of marketing spend, and distribution density, such that movies with female and underrepresented leads/co leads were given less support in these critical areas than movies with white or male leads. In other words, the perception of economic “risk” tied to identity guides decision-making about who can lead a film. 

To solve this problem, companies and producers must critically examine the resources given to films with women and underrepresented leads– and women of color in leading roles in particular. Then, companies must level the field by ensuring that the movies starring women and people of color are not systematically disadvantaged through the allotment of budgets, marketing, or in the distribution process. 

At each stage of the green light and budget trajectory, executives must seek to decouple “risk” from identity and assess whether the questions they ask themselves to gauge “risk” for films with women and underrepresented leads are the same they pose about white male-driven movies. 

The UCLA and the USC studies, released days apart, reinforced their separate findings.

The authors of the UCLA study noted that 2021 was the first year since they began tracking such statistics that the majority of Academy Awards went to films that were directed by people of color and featured minority actors in lead roles. And the year’s third highest-grossing film at the box office was “F9: The Fast Saga,” which featured a cast that was more than 50% minority and was directed by Taiwanese American filmmaker Justin Lin. Sixty-five percent of opening weekend ticket sales for “F9” were to minority audiences, the highest figure among all films in the top 10.

The report tracks the numbers of writers, directors and actors who identify as Asian American, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern/North African, multiracial and Native American. People in those groups make up 42.7% of the U.S. population, and they form an important consumer bloc for entertainment, including movies. 

Diversity in casting results in box office success

For six of the 10 top-grossing films that opened in theaters in 2021, people of color accounted for the majority of opening-weekend U.S. ticket sales. 

The UCLA report also analyzed box office performance based on the diversity of the movies’ casts — whether minority actors made up less than 11% of the cast, 11% to 20%, and so on, up to 51% or more. The study revealed that films with 21% to 30% minority actors had higher median global box office receipts than films in any other tier. That echoed a pattern since the report began tracking box office performance in 2011.

The UCLA report also found that, as in previous years, films with the least diverse casts (11% or less minority) were the poorest performers at the box office. 

“Last year, every time a big movie exceeded expectations or broke a box office record, the majority of opening weekend audiences were people of color,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, a co-author of the report and the director of research and civic engagement for the UCLA College division of social sciences. “For people of color, and especially Latino families, theaters provided an excursion when almost everything else was shut down. In a sense, people of color kept studios afloat the past couple of years.

“Studios should consider them to be investors, and as investors, they should get a return in the form of representation.”

Overall, 43.1% of actors in the movies analyzed by the report were minorities. That’s more than double the percentage from 2011, the first year of data collected by the authors, when 20.7% of actors were minorities. And 31.0% of the top-performing films in 2021 had casts in which the majority of the actors were minorities.

“Minorities reached proportionate representation in 2020 for the first time when it comes to overall cast diversity in films, and that held true again in 2021,” said Darnell Hunt, dean of the social sciences at UCLA and co-author of the report.

Hunt said the phenomenon is probably due in part to the greater number of movies that are initially released on streaming services: Of the films analyzed in the UCLA report, 45.6% were released on streaming services only.

“We do think this dual-release strategy is here to stay,” Hunt said. “And it could have a lasting impact on diversity metrics in front of and behind the camera as studios think about how to finance content for different platforms.”

For example, the report found that women and people of color were far more likely than white men to direct films with budgets less than $20 million.

“A small production budget usually means that there is also little to no marketing and studio support, unless it’s from a production company known for making art house films,” Ramón said. “And that makes it more difficult for filmmakers to get the next opportunity if their films have to fight for attention.”

Hunt said studios are likely to bank on big-budget tentpole movies and sequels as traditional box office drivers, even as they continue to experiment with release platforms and adjust the amount of time between films’ theatrical releases and their arrival on streaming services or on DVD or Blu-ray.

Among the 2021 films released to streaming services, those with casts in which a majority of actors were non-white enjoyed the highest ratings among viewers aged 18 to 49 and in Black households. Seventy-two films with majority-minority casts were released on streaming in 2021, including “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Coming 2 America,” “Vivo” and “Mortal Kombat.”

“In 2021, diversity in front of the camera did not equate to more opportunities behind the camera for filmmakers who are women and people of color,” Ramón said. “They continue to receive less financing, even when they make films with white lead actors. Most of these filmmakers are relegated to low-budget films,” reports the UCLA study.

By the numbers

Other takeaways from the UCLA report:

• Films written or directed by people of color in 2021 had significantly more diverse casts than those written or directed by white men.
• Asian American people made up 5.6% of lead actors, 6.4% of overall cast, 6.7% of directors and 4.0% of writers.
• Black actors held 15.5% of lead actor roles and 18% of overall acting roles, as well as 9.5% of directors and 10.4% of writers. For comparison, Black people make up about 13% of the U.S. population.
• Latinos held just 7.1% of lead acting roles, 7.7% of overall acting roles, 5.6% of writers and 7.1% of directors. Latinos represent 18.7% of the U.S. population.
• There were no lead actors of Middle Eastern and North African descent in the films analyzed.
• Native Americans remain virtually invisible in Hollywood, making up less than 1% of each job category in the study.
• Women made up 47.2% of lead acting roles, nearly double the 2011 percentage, which was 25.6%.

The Oscars will be held on March 27, 2022, at 5 p.m., PDT and air on ABC. The ceremony will take place at the Dolby Theatre, located in Los Angeles,

Hollywood, like the rest of the nation, is still stumbling around trying to wrestle its way out of the quagmire of race and representation. It is a struggle that is evolving and necessary in order for the "soft power" Hollywood spreads across the world -- albeit in pursuit of profits -- to reflect the emerging America.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. 

AAPI misleading data overlooks the devastating toll on Filipino American health workers

By Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD, MPH

REPRINTED FROM THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA)

In the United States, Filipinxs are the third largest Asian subgroup and have represented a crucial part of the country’s health care workforce since the mid-20th century. Although the 2.9 million Filipinxs in the US represent about 1% of the population, approximately 1 of 4 Filipinx working adults are frontline health care workers. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacted a disproportionate toll on Filipinx communities in the US and on Filipinx health care workers, specifically. The absence of disaggregated race/ethnicity data for COVID-19 has masked how the pandemic has affected Filipinxs in the US. 

Policy makers and researchers must recognize that these disparities are not limited to COVID-19 but are a critical example of how data aggregation under a single Asian category has hidden the health needs of the Filipinx population.

Missing in the Data, Missing in Policy Discussions

Aggregate race/ethnicity data for COVID-19 cases and deaths mask the disproportionate burden on Asian subgroups, including Filipinxs in the US, leaving these disparities unrecognized and unaddressed. 

Asians comprise nearly 6% of the US population but only about 3% of COVID-19 cases and 4% of its deaths, suggesting that Asian Americans are not disproportionately affected by COVID-19. 

Yet a different picture has emerged for Filipinxs in Hawaii, the only state which publicly reports disaggregated Asian data: Filipinx residents comprise 16% of the population but 22% of COVID-19 deaths. Similar analyses are not possible nationally or in any other state. 

While some states may collect data on Filipinxs, these data are typically restricted and only available through public information requests. For example, Filipinxs comprise 42% of COVID-19 deaths among Asian adults (18-64 years) in California despite making up just 20% of the state’s nonelderly Asian adult population. No other Asian subgroup accounted for more than 15% of deaths.

Importantly, this disparate impact of COVID-19 would have remained undetected without the media, research, and advocacy efforts that exposed the higher burden on Filipinxs, especially among health care workers. The grassroots transnational organization, AF3IRM has a poignant online tribute to fallen Filipinx health care workers (https://www.kanlungan.net/). A report by National Nurses United5 showed that Filipinxs comprise an estimated 32% of COVID-19 deaths among nurses in the US despite representing only 4% of nurses nationally.

Moreover, the lack of disaggregated COVID-19 mortality data in public health surveillance systems hides the mortality burden among Filipinx health care workers. Researchers have undertaken “work-around” studies that use the conventional data available to corroborate inferences made by online tributes and ad hoc reports. One such work-around study by Escobedo and colleagues using data from the 2018 American Community Survey 5-year estimates showed that having a higher percentage of Filipinxs in a county’s health care workforce was significantly associated with a greater share of COVID-19 deaths among Asian Americans. In the conventional data surveillance infrastructure used to assess health disparities, the toll of COVID-19 among Filipinx communities has not been recognized.

The disproportionate mortality among Filipinx nurses is particularly alarming given the historical reasons that contributed to the high representation of Filipinxs in the health care workforce. US-sponsored nursing schools were established in the Philippines during the American colonial period (1898-1946), followed by a deliberate immigration policy that recruited health care workers from the Philippines to address US workforce shortages. 

Currently, nurses from the Philippines represent a majority of internationally educated nurses in the US and are more likely to work in inpatient and critical care units, thereby facing a higher risk of occupational exposure to COVID-19. 

Moreover, 18% of Asian Americans live in a household with at least one health care worker, the second highest percentage across all race/ethnicity groups. This proportion is even higher among Filipinx households, 38% of which are both multigenerational and include at least one health care worker. 

These data suggest that occupational and structural factors have contributed to a greater risk of COVID-19 exposure and transmission among Filipinxs.

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Filipinx Share of COVID-19 Deaths Among Asians and Share of the Asian Population of California in 2020, by Single Race Non–Latino Asian Subgroup of Adults (18-64 Years)

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Data Aggregation as a Contributor to Filipinx Health Disparities

Data aggregation has not only obscured the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on specific racial/ethnic subgroups, but it has also hampered the ability to monitor for preexisting risk factors contributing to higher mortality among subgroups. Efforts to identify health disparities among Filipinxs often rely on data from the California Health Interview Survey because, to our knowledge, it is the only large-scale health survey in the US that disaggregates Filipinx data and therefore allows robust analyses. A study of this survey data by Adia and colleagues found that Filipinxs were three times more likely to have hypertension and 2 times more likely to have diabetes—both of which are risk factors for severe COVID-19 — compared with White individuals in California. 

The aggregation of Asian groups in most public health data has systematically obscured Filipinx disparities related to long-term conditions, limiting the ability to leverage official statistics to garner support for investment and interventions focused on addressing these disparities.

The idea that data disaggregation is imperative for identifying health disparities among individual Asian American groups, including Filipinxs, has long preceded the COVID-19 pandemic. While efforts by organizations in civil society have provided important signals regarding Filipinx health, these organizations do not have the same capacity as federal and state governments, which carry the ultimate responsibility for collecting data to guide public health response. The success of the California Health Interview Survey in drawing attention to health disparities for Asian subgroups, such as Filipinxs, illustrates that high quality race/ethnicity data can be collected feasibly.

Without disaggregated data for Asian subgroups, Filipinxs have been ignored in public health planning efforts, perpetuating health disparities within a community that has shouldered a disproportionate share of the frontline health care work. Therefore, the inaction of government and health care institutions to collect and report detailed race/ethnicity information must be reframed not as the default choice, but as an active choice that perpetuates preventable disparities.

Implications for COVID-19 and Beyond

While the increased availability of COVID-19 vaccines will provide an end to the pandemic, policy makers should take concrete steps to ensure an equitable recovery that will also prepare the country for a more equitable response to future health challenges. Public health surveillance and health care delivery systems must adequately capture granular self-reported race and ethnicity data. 

The routine collection of these data would be consistent with the proposed data collection standards issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services for population surveys. Adoption of such policies are important first steps toward keeping an equity focus during the post–COVID-19 recovery, particularly for Filipinx health care workers and Filipinx communities in the U.S.

Carlos Irwin A. Oronce, MD, MPH, National Clinician Scholars Program, University of California Los Angeles, These contents are the authors’ own and do not represent the views of any author’s employer or institution, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the US Government.

Disaggregated data reveals hidden health disparities among Asian Americans

Asians in America appear to be healthier than non-Hispanic whites, however, when the data is disaggregated, health disparities among the different subgroups become apparent. 

A new study, "Health Conditions, Outcomes, and Service Access Among Filipino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Adults in California, 2011–2017," published in the American Journal of Public Health has appearances don't match the data. It found that Asian Americans tend to have worse health indicators than whites. especially among Vietnamese, Japanese and Koreans. Filipinos had the worst health among all Asian Americans.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, and Brown University found the importance of disaggregated data. They found that when Asian Americans are treated as as a monolithic group, it masks the real health needs of the different subgoups. 

“What we’re just trying to call out here is that the more we choose to treat data aggregation as the standard and then disaggregation as a novelty and nice to have, the more we choose to be blind to the health issues faced by the community,” said Alexander Adia, one of the study's authors.

The authors found that Filipino Americans appeared to be in the worst health of all Asian subgroups in the study. Filipinos were found to have a greater prevalence of high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease and delayed medication usage compared to Asians overall. Filipinos also had higher levels in the first three health outcomes compared to non-Hispanic whites.

The irony is that “Filipino Americans are disproportionately involved in the provision of health care, but it seems the data practices that we currently employed aren’t great at identifying their needs,” Adia said.

DAILY BRUIN GRAPHIC

On the other hand, Chinese Californians appear to be the healthiest subgroup with the fewest negative disparities compared with non-Hispanic white adults.

Chinese adults ranked highest in the category of no doctors visits in the past year, and the Japanese subgroup topped high blood pressure at the same rate as Filipino adults.

The study also found that Vietnamese adults had the highest rates of fair or poor health and disability while Korean adults suffered from the highest rates of serious distress. Additionally, Korean adults ranked highest in no usual source of care and delayed care in terms of health service access.

Researchers analyzed data from the California Health Interview Survey, a web and telephone survey that provides data on the state's health and health care needs. They specifically looked at data from about 13,000 Asians from 2011 to 2017, said Adia. One of the flaws of the study is that the data is self-reported and the respondents were only from California.

The findings, the researchers said, proves that further studies of health needs of the different subgroups through the use of disaggregated data is needed.

They explained that the idea of Asian Americans as a “model minority” has been debunkedin other areas such as educational attainment, employment, and income. The idea of the model minority myth doesn't apply in health, either, they learned.

Second study author Jennifer Nazareno said, “When we think of model minority, a lot of the academic research focuses on identity politics and the difference between social classes. But in terms of health disparities and health inequities, that is severely under-researched.”