Aging

From signing up for essential benefits, to getting a ride to a doctor’s appointment, to connecting with others to fight isolation and loneliness, our community’s elders depend on the holistic services that community-based organizations provide to age with health and dignity.

Southeast Asian American elders are among the most underserved populations in the United States. Almost a fifth of them are estimated to live in poverty, more than double the estimate for the country’s elder population as a whole. Many elders live with undiagnosed mental health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, stemming from their refugee experiences with war. Southeast Asian American elders also have some of the highest rates of limited English proficiency of any ethnic group.

SEARAC advocates for culturally relevant health and mental health care, and for support to community-based organizations that are best equipped to serve the complex needs of our elders.

See more aging-related news, reports, and fact sheets in our Resource Hub.

Key resources

  • Aging with Health and Dignity: Diverse Elders Speak Up
    In 2016, the Diverse Elders Coalition partnered with Caring Across Generations to collect nearly 5,000 comments from our communities about what we need to age with health and dignity. Comments were collected in six languages from all 50 states and provided a snapshot of the challenges of aging in communities of color, LGBT communities, and American Indian/Alaska Native communities.
  • Southeast Asian American Elders #TellACL
    Infographic describing the socioeconomic and linguistic characteristics of the older Southeast Asian American population, along with quotes collected during the Diverse Elders Coalition’s #TellACL campaign.
  • Securing Our Future: Advancing Economic Security for Diverse Elders
    This report from the Diverse Elders Coalition, authored by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, describes the issues facing elders of color and LGBT elders, who together will represent a majority of older adults in the United States by 2050. The report also offers policy recommendations in several areas key to the well-being of older people, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, health care reform, and more.

Current campaigns

SEARAC is a core work group member of the Diverse Elders Coalition, a coalition of five aging organizations dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of diverse aging communities. Read about the DEC’s guiding principles here. The other members of the DEC include: