“Healthy People 2010 and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders: Defining a Baseline of Information” by Chandak Ghosh

The article “Healthy People 2010 and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders: Defining a Baseline of Information”by Chandak Ghosh is a research of the Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders (AAPI) through the prism of the medical treatment the state provides to them. This population has the fastest rate of growing in the USA and, according to its dynamics, AAPI will make 11% of the American nation, but today they are just one of the minorities with low treatment (Ghosh, 2003). The author tries to determine the areas of AAPI's engagement into the medical service in order to understand the main problems the state has to eliminate to ensure growing of the population. To achieve it, Ghosh analyzed the articles from the National Library of Medicine MEDLINE and the federal health-related grants through the Computer Retrieval of Information on Specific Projects (CRISP) database. According to Ghosh (2003), there are only 0,01 articles and 0,2 grants concerning the health service of AAPI people. Besides, even in such small amount, most of the articles and grants have the connection with some themes when other fields of the AAPI health remain without concern. In such a way, the main problem of the federal policy and researches regarding the health of AAPI is a small circle of the fields they try to resolve (Ghosh, 2003).

The article has some specific weaknesses – most of all, because of the characteristic features of the object of research. AAPI is not a biological term, but a political one, while the main aim of the research is to look at all ethnic groups of AAPI as on those who have some common problems in the sphere of the medical service. As the author claims, AAPI speak more than 100 languages and consist of those who have their roots in 29 Asian countries (95%) and those who belong to 20 Pacific Islanders cultures (5%) (Ghosh, 2003). The problem also is the difference between the representatives of the same ethnic group who belong to different social or economic categories of people. In such a way, the divergence between the multiple subgroups of AAPI can be very significant. Such artificial character of AAPI makes the analysis very difficult and incorrect in some respects. Another weakness of the article is a shortage of data. The reason of that is the lack of attention to AAPI's health because of their previous comparatively insignificant role in the process of the American population growth. A small circle of the sources the author used for the research is the third problem. There are many publications except those he could find in MEDLINE and many grants except the federal ones. That is why the article has many limitations and needs a new approach to the problem that would help to get objective and satisfactory information for the further development of AAPI medical service. The strong sides of the article are the interest to the problems of AAPI and the beginning of the systematic research of the topic. Certainly, the first steps are always very difficult; that is why the article has so many weaknesses, but the next researchers have to complement it with their new findings.

The intention to develop the new field of the science makes the research very significant in social, political and medical respects. Its social value is the potency to get the new understanding of the American society through the analysis of its small ethnic units. The political importance of it consists in the development of the ways of medical treatment for the minorities. The author focuses the attention of the medics on the new object – AAPI. It can help to provide medical service of higher standards to the representatives of AAPI population according either to this group's characteristic features or to the differences between its subgroups. Through the findings of the author, the politicians can create some new grants in order to support AAPI, the scientists can conduct some new researches in order to engage the new aspects of AAPI's health, and the medical personnel can get the possibility to provide more accurate and professional support.