Not Just 'Asian' but Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, and Mixed Asian American

To date, most research focused on depression prevalence is with adolescents or adults and focuses mainly on risk factors, with few studies assessing factors related to depression for Asian American young adults. Using longitudinal data collected from web-based surveys administered over a 5-year period (wave 10: 2017-2018; wave 14: 2021-2022; and wave 15:2022-2023) on 460 young adults (22-28 years old at wave 15) who identify as Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Chinese, and mixed Asian American, we examined associations between risk and protective factors, such as discrimination, prior depression, social cohesion, neighborhood Asian concentration, and recent depression using a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. Comparing SEM results from a combined Asian American model to our multi-group Asian American model, we find that except for prior depression, results vary by Asian ethnic origins. Differences by Asian origins were found for female sex, educational attainment, discrimination, and social cohesion; we also found differences in association direction with greater Asian concentration in the neighborhood positively related to depression scores for Japanese American but negatively related to depression scores for Chinese American (and to a lesser degree Korean American) young adults. Findings highlight the importance of understanding how risk and protective factors contribute to depression among different Asian American groups to better address depression vulnerability in prevention programming.