Death by Invisibility: The History of Heart Disease in South Asians Living in America (1965-Present)
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Date
2024-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
This project focuses on the development of the categorization of heart disease in South Asians living in America as a result of a combination of immigration factors, research advances, and the prevalence of South Asians in medicine. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for humans across the globe and studies around the world have shown that South Asians suffer from higher rates of heart disease. Surprisingly, although many theories have been posed, no clear consensus has emerged as to the reason behind this phenomenon. In recent decades, South Asian heart disease in the U.S. has received new and sustained attention from the medical establishment. How did this disease become visible and what does the previous invisibility tell us about the American healthcare system? In order to answer these questions, I have uncovered stories from South Asian immigrants, physicians, and researchers from 1965, when South Asian immigration began to flourish due to the Immigration and Nationality Act, to the present day. The convergence of social factors, such as South Asian immigration patterns to large cities and the increased visibility and prominence of South Asians in the medical profession, as well as the growing inclusion of South Asians in medical research, has led to crystallization of South Asian heart disease as a separate and visible category. The recent rise of this categorization combined with the tendency to attribute heart disease to South Asian culture has negative effects on how the medical sphere cares for this chronic illness and is a matter that physicians and researchers should be cognizant of.
This project is based on a combination of scientific literature, firsthand interviews, and archival research from online databases on South Asian immigration and heart disease. The result is a body of work that incorporates primary source analysis to situate the growing dissemination of knowledge on South Asian heart disease into the context of the expanding field of racialized medicine in the American healthcare system in the 21st century.
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Heart disease, South Asians, South Asian physicians, South Asian immigration, heart disease research, cultural attribution