From Social Exclusion to Inflammation: Cultural, Gendered, and Biological Dimensions of Acculturative Stress in Chinese Immigrant Female Populations
Sarah Wang
21/07/2026
Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing populations in North America, doubling their population from approximately 11.9 million in 2000 to 24.8 million in 2023 in the United States alone (Krogstad & Im, 2025). Yet, a strong understanding of the issues that this population faces still needs to be developed. This review examines stigma around mental health that exists in Asian culture, how that produces isolating and suppressive behaviours that, coupled with a lack of language proficiency and unfamiliar cultural norms, manifest into a lack of help-seeking behaviours for Asian immigrants despite the relative abundance of mental health care. Significant sections of the discussion will focus on the gendered expectations and societal factors that affect Asian American women in China and continue to affect them in their subsequent immigration to Western countries, which create barriers to achieving a higher socioeconomic status. This, then, correlates with an exacerbation of women's existing vulnerabilities to mood disorders, such as inflammatory hormone fluctuation, differences in social and emotional cognition and possible predispositions to hyper-active HPA arousal, which predispose women to developing somatic symptoms: increased difficulty with daily functioning and inflammation. Discussion will also include potential mitigating factors such as social support and different methods of cultural adaptation.