School of Health Administration (Parsons Leigh, Moss, Tiifu, FitzGerald, Brundin-Mathers, De Grood), Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Dodds, Stelfox, Fiest, Ng-Kamstra), Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.; Department of Surgery (Brar), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.; O'Brien Institute for Public Health (Stelfox), Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.; The Queen's Medical Center (Ng-Kamstra), Honolulu, HI; Department of Surgery (Ng-Kamstra), University of Hawaii at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, HI
School of Health Administration (Parsons Leigh, Moss, Tiifu, FitzGerald, Brundin-Mathers, De Grood), Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; Department of Critical Care Medicine (Dodds, Stelfox, Fiest, Ng-Kamstra), Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.; Department of Surgery (Brar), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont.; O'Brien Institute for Public Health (Stelfox), Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alta.; The Queen's Medical Center (Ng-Kamstra), Honolulu, HI; Department of Surgery (Ng-Kamstra), University of Hawaii at Manoa, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, HI.
CMAJ Open. 2022 Jun 14;10(2):E539-E545. doi: 10.9778/cmajo.20220019. Print 2022 Apr-Jun.
Asian Canadians have experienced increased cases of racialized discrimination after the first emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in China. This study examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Asian Canadians' sense of safety and belonging in their Canadian (i.e., geographical) communities.
We applied a qualitative description study design in which semistructured interviews were conducted from Mar. 23 to May 27, 2021. Purposive and snowball sampling methods were used to recruit Asian Canadians diverse in region, gender and age. Interviews were conducted through Zoom videoconference or telephone, and independent qualitative thematic analysis in duplicate was used to derive primary themes and subthemes.
Thirty-two Asian Canadians (median age 35 [interquartile range 24-46] yr, 56% female, 44% East Asian) participated in the study. We identified 5 predominant themes associated with how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the participants' sense of security and belonging to their communities: relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and exposure to discrimination (i.e., how SES insulates or exposes individuals to increased discrimination); politics, media and the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., the key role that politicians and media played in enabling spread of discrimination against and fear of Asian people); effect of discrimination on mental and social health (i.e., people's ability to interact and form meaningful relationships with others); coping with the impact of discrimination (i.e., the way people appraise and move forward in identity-threatening situations); and implications for sense of safety and sense of belonging (i.e., people feeling unable to safely use public spaces in person, including the need to remain alert in anticipation of harm, leading to distress and exhaustion).
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Canadians in our study felt unsafe owing to the uncertain, unexpected and unpredictable nature of discrimination, but also felt a strong sense of belonging to Canadian society and felt well connected to their Asian Canadian communities. Future work should seek to explore the influence of social media on treatment of and attitudes toward Asian Canadians.
在中国首次出现 SARS-CoV-2 后，亚裔加拿大人经历了更多的种族歧视事件。本研究调查了 COVID-19 大流行如何影响亚裔加拿大人在加拿大（即地理）社区中的安全感和归属感。
我们采用定性描述研究设计，于 2021 年 3 月 23 日至 5 月 27 日进行半结构式访谈。采用目的抽样和滚雪球抽样方法招募了来自不同地区、性别和年龄的亚裔加拿大人。通过 Zoom 视频会议或电话进行访谈，并采用独立的定性主题分析对主要主题和子主题进行双重分析。
32 名亚裔加拿大人（中位数年龄 35 [四分位距 24-46] 岁，56%女性，44%东亚裔）参加了这项研究。我们确定了 5 个与 COVID-19 大流行如何影响参与者对社区的安全感和归属感相关的主要主题：社会经济地位（SES）与歧视暴露之间的关系（即 SES 如何使个人免受或暴露于增加的歧视）；政治、媒体与 COVID-19 大流行（即政客和媒体在助长对亚洲人的歧视和恐惧方面发挥的关键作用）；歧视对心理健康和社会健康的影响（即人们与他人互动和建立有意义关系的能力）；应对歧视影响的方法（即人们在身份受到威胁的情况下进行评估和前进的方式）；以及对安全感和归属感的影响（即人们感到无法亲自安全地使用公共空间，包括需要保持警惕以防伤害，从而导致痛苦和疲惫）。
在 COVID-19 大流行期间，我们研究中的亚裔加拿大人感到不安全，原因是歧视具有不确定性、意外性和不可预测性，但他们也强烈感受到自己属于加拿大社会，并与亚裔加拿大社区有很好的联系。未来的工作应该探索社交媒体对亚裔加拿大人的待遇和态度的影响。
