A troubling pattern of unequal heart failure treatment has emerged within Asian American communities, challenging the perception that Asians uniformly receive quality healthcare in the United States. Research from Feinberg School of Medicine reveals stark differences in care quality among specific ethnic groups that often go unnoticed when data is aggregated.
Vietnamese men were 32 percent less likely to receive optimal medical therapy compared to white adults, while Filipina women faced even steeper odds—48 percent less likely to receive defect-free care. Lead author Professor Xiaoning Huang emphasized that despite highly standardized heart failure protocols with consistent medications and processes, significant inconsistencies persist between Asian American ethnic groups.
Professor Huang noted that Asians are often viewed as the group doing well in American healthcare literature, but research increasingly shows significant health disparities between different ethnic groups within this broad category. Without separating data by specific ethnicities, these differences become statistically invisible.
The research analyzed over 800 U.S. hospitals but couldn’t capture factors like socioeconomic status, education, or language barriers that affect care quality. Professor Namratha Kandula expressed puzzlement over the findings for Filipina women, given that Filipinos represent 4 percent of U.S. nurses despite comprising only 1 percent of the general population.
Researchers emphasized that the next critical step involves understanding why these disparities exist. Professor Nilay Shah stressed the importance of improving representation of diverse populations in health data to advance equitable care.
See: “Feinberg researchers discover heart failure care disparities in Asian American communities” (February 4, 2026)Â
