Substance Abuse Among Asian Americans Nationwide: The Impact of Childhood Victimization

Background and Purpose:

Although the absolute number of Asian Americans has been lower than that of other ethnic minority population, Asian Americans have become the fastest escalating ethnic minority population in the US, with approximately 17.3 million accounted for in the latest US Census. This population represented heterogeneous cultural and ethnic contexts, which might lead to substance abuse. Specifically, childhood victimization, directly related to health problems, becomes a major social issue.  However, there is little known about the association of childhood physical and sexual victimization with substance abuse among Asian Americans nationwide.  The purpose of this study was to investigate how childhood physical and sexual victimization is related to substance abuse of Asian Americans. 

Methods:

The data was used from the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). Using STATA 11, this study conducted the three models of logistic regressions to examine the predictive value of childhood physical and sexual victimization on substance abuse for Asian Americans (Chinese, Filipino, Vietnamese, and other Asian Americans; N=2,095). Among participants, 52.5% of those were female. Most of participants were married/cohabiting (68.7%), never married (23%), and divorced/separated/widowed (8.4%). Asian American subgroups included 28.6% Chinese, 21.6% Filipino, and 13% Vietnamese. The mean age of participants was 41.58 years (SD=15.58).

Results:

The several findings emerged from the three models. First, the baseline model (Model-1) presented socio-demographic variables for the likelihood of substance abuse in Asian Americans. The results reported that Asian Americans who were younger, males, Filipino or other Asian Americans, and unemployed were more likely to have substance abuse. In Model-2, adding the acculturation factors, those who were not born in the US and lived more years in the US were more likely to have substance abuse. Unlike Model-1, marital status was a significant predictor to reduce substance abuse, but gender and ethnicity were not significant. Finally, these patterns essentially continued in Model-3, when childhood victimization variables were added. Importantly, Asian Americans who had experienced childhood physical and sexual victimization were approximately 11 times and 4.9 times more likely to have substance abuse. The new set of predictors produced a significantly better model fit (c2 change=39.82; df=7; p<.05).

Conclusions and Implications:

This study highlights the association between childhood victimization and substance abuse among Asian Americans and contributes to its useful knowledge to provide in social work research and practice. As Asian Americans have become a crucial proportion of ethnic minority population in the US, it is important to investigate the influence of childhood physical and sexual victimization to decrease the likelihood of substance abuse. Gender-specific approaches on the association between childhood victimization and substance abuse should be considered in further research. Our study can be used by social work practitioners in developing and implementing a large variety of prevention and intervention programs. It can help to reduce substance abuse as well as to improve Asian Americans’ well-being. Additionally, this study implies that the society should shift the perspectives towards racial and ethnic discrimination for building better cultural competence.