Disparities in educational attainment and assault mortalities among Asian Americans in the USA, 2009-2021

Background: In 2021, a spike in Asian American hate crimes resurged discussion on Asian health disparities. This study describes the association between education and assault among Asian Americans and their subgroups.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used individual-level data from the mortality multiple cause-of-death data from the National Center for Health Statistics from 2009 to 2021. Non-Hispanic Asians or Pacific Islanders age>25 years who died from assault (X85-Y09) were disaggregated into Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Indian, Korean and Vietnamese. The gross proportion of decedents who attained at least bachelor's degrees was calculated for Asians or Pacific Islanders and each subgroup and compared with data from the National Center for Education Statistics reported in 2016.

Results: Based on US Census estimates in 2016, 55% Chinese, 52% Japanese, 50% Filipino, 56% Korean, 75% Indian and 29% Vietnamese>25 years held at least bachelor's degrees. Between 2009 and 2021, there were 3495 assault mortalities involving Asians or Pacific Islanders, 22.3% of whom had at least attained bachelor's degrees. On disaggregating the data, 35.6% Chinese, 27.7% Japanese, 33.2% Filipino, 43.0% Indian, 36.3% Korean and 15% Vietnamese decedents attained at least a bachelor's degree.

Conclusions: Higher educational attainment is correlated with fewer assault deaths across all Asians. Variation in the proportion of Indian and Vietnamese victims with at least bachelor's degrees may be explained by significantly different rates of bachelor's degrees. However, the variation in proportion of Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Korean victims with at least bachelor's degrees requires further investigation into underlying factors that contribute to assault disparities.