Insights in Public Health: Challenges Investigating Health Outcomes in Chinese Americans Using Population-Based Survey Data.

Chinese Americans constitute the largest percentage of Asian Americans. In Hawai'i, Chinese Americans make up approximately 4.7% of the total state population. Accurately assessing health disparities across specific Asian American subgroups is critically important to health research and policy, as there is often substantial variability in risk and outcomes. However, even for Chinese Americans, the largest of the Asian American subgroups, such analyses can present challenges in population-based surveys. This article considers these challenges generally and then specifically in terms of the issue of health literacy and heart disease in Chinese Americans using existing population-based survey data sets in the United States, California, and Hawai'i.