nationalsciencefoundation:

AAPI Data provides information about specific Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, and compares them with other U.S. demographic groups.

May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in America, but they are also an incredibly diverse group. Because of this diversity, the statistics collected on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from important large social surveys, like the General Social Survey (GSS) and the American National Election Studies (ANES) don’t contain large enough samples of each sub-group to provide a complete picture of the population.

Political Scientist Karthick Ramakrishnan, at the University of California-Riverside, is working to change that. He surveys Asian Pacific Americans, replicating questions that are included on other large surveys, including GSS and ANES. Through the AAPI Data project, he and his colleagues provide accessible data that provides detailed information on groups within the Asian Pacific American demographic.

Since Ramakrishnan’s questions match those from GSS and ANES – surveys that provide enormously important information on a broad range of social and economic science questions – his data allows researchers to compare Asian Pacific Americans to other groups in the U.S. This creates opportunities to draw important conclusions about social and civic integration, immigrant economics, workforce concerns and many other questions.

Economic, social, and health outcomes can vary dramatically from one group of Asian Pacific Americans to another, so this type of statistical data is important to policy decision making.

In addition to analyzing national trends, AAPI Data looks at issues specific to Asian American and Pacific Islander populations.

Image credits: AAPI Data