ArticleCMAJ open
Lived experiences of Asian Canadians encountering discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative interview study.
Article in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Impact of COVID-19 on Racialised Minority Populations: A Systematic Review of Experiences and Perspectives.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Pooled it
- Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Black, East Asian, and Eastern European Diasporic Communities in Toronto: A Scoping Review.International journal of social determinants of health and health services · 2026Article
- Developing a Trauma-Informed Social Media Campaign to Disseminate Endometriosis-Specific Qualitative Art-Based Research Findings: Tutorial.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Endometriosis and expressions of self-management and resilience among Asian women living in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: A photovoice study.Journal of public health research · 2026Article
- How Xenophobia Shapes Political Party Support: Evidence from COVID-19 in Canada.Race and social problems · 2026Article
- Race, discrimination, and mental health adversity in Canada.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2025Article
- COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and preference for future delivery among language minority, newcomer, and racialized peoples in Canada: a national cross-sectional and longitudinal study.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Delayed Access to Medical Care and Psychological Distress among Chinese Immigrants in Canada during the Pandemic.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Exploring perceptions and experiences of stigma in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study.BMC global and public health · 2023Article
- Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of Asian women with endometriosis in Canada: A photovoice study.Women's health (London, England)Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAsian Canadians have experienced increased cases of racialized discrimination after the first emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in China. This study examined how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Asian Canadians' sense of safety and belonging in their Canadian (i.e., geographical) communities.
methodsWe applied a qualitative description study design in which semistructured interviews were conducted from Mar. 23 to May 27, 2021. Purposive and snowball sampling methods were used to recruit Asian Canadians diverse in region, gender and age. Interviews were conducted through Zoom videoconference or telephone, and independent qualitative thematic analysis in duplicate was used to derive primary themes and subthemes.
resultsThirty-two Asian Canadians (median age 35 [interquartile range 24-46] yr, 56% female, 44% East Asian) participated in the study. We identified 5 predominant themes associated with how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the participants' sense of security and belonging to their communities: relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and exposure to discrimination (i.e., how SES insulates or exposes individuals to increased discrimination); politics, media and the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., the key role that politicians and media played in enabling spread of discrimination against and fear of Asian people); effect of discrimination on mental and social health (i.e., people's ability to interact and form meaningful relationships with others); coping with the impact of discrimination (i.e., the way people appraise and move forward in identity-threatening situations); and implications for sense of safety and sense of belonging (i.e., people feeling unable to safely use public spaces in person, including the need to remain alert in anticipation of harm, leading to distress and exhaustion).
interpretationDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Canadians in our study felt unsafe owing to the uncertain, unexpected and unpredictable nature of discrimination, but also felt a strong sense of belonging to Canadian society and felt well connected to their Asian Canadian communities. Future work should seek to explore the influence of social media on treatment of and attitudes toward Asian Canadians.
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