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Mitigating stigma of Alzheimer's disease dementia among Chinese Americans
Author(s) -
Woo Benjamin K.P.,
Chung Siubak,
Woo Gina,
Chung Jamie O.P.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2019.02.006
Subject(s) - gerontology , asian american studies , asia pacific , medicine , history , library science , sociology , anthropology , ethnology , computer science
We read with great interest the article by Stites et al. [1] and commend the authors for analyzing stigma of dementia among 317 adults from the US general public. Their study showed that 55% respondents expected a person with dementia to be discriminated by his/her employers, and approximately 46% respondents expected a person with dementia to have his/her health-care insurance limited. As such, the authors called for public education and policies to address such stigmatized attitudes, particularly among divergent racial and ethnic groups. In a previous study [2] investigating Chinese-American general public attitudes toward people with dementia, we found that 78% respondents expected a person with dementia to be fired by his employers, but only 14% respondents expected a person with dementia to have his health-care insurance limited. This suggests that a cultural factor, filial piety (respecting one’s elders), that is not commonplace in the US general public may be an important theme in the Chinese-American community. Because the effect of filial piety may be especially potent in the Chinese immigrant communities, future studies should examine the effect of filial piety on dementia stigma in Chinese-American immigrant adults. Future studies should also explore what are the effects of social and cultural factors on ageism. Nevertheless, public education is much needed to address the rampant discrimination on the basis of age and health among the Chinese-American general public. In the study by Stites et al. [1], the authors hypothesized that expected dementia stigma would be less common among African Americans as these respondents were more likely to interact with persons with dementia than white respondents. However, in the Chinese-American general public, we observed that even Chinese Americans with first-degree relatives with dementia subscribed to moderately stigmatizing views about the illness [3]. Because direct contact with persons with dementia may not aid in mitigating stigma among Chinese Americans, other strategies would be needed to reduce dementia stigma, specifically