The Invisibility of Asian Americans in COVID-19 Data, Reporting, and Relief

Without proper recognition of the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and racism that Asian Americans and other racial minorities in the United States are facing, we cannot successfully address structural barriers to healthcare. The target article by Sabatello et al. (2021) omitted Asian Americans from its discussion of COVID-19 health disparities or structural racism, perhaps in keeping with the NIH not recognizing Asian Americans as an underrepresented group. However, the structural racism and health disparities faced by Asian Americans cannot be addressed unless first, Asians are acknowledged as facing such disparities, and second, that “Asian American” is an oversimplified label for a heterogeneous group. We must unmask invisible Asian communities and improve data collection and reporting for subgroups.