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High Prevalence of Hypertension and Other Cardiometabolic Risk Factors in US- and Caribbean-Born Blacks with Chest

Ayotunde Bamimore1, Oladipupo Olafiranye, Melaku Demede

  • 1Brooklyn Health Disparities Center, Department of Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, N.Y., USA.

Cardiorenal Medicine
|September 1, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Caribbean-born blacks (CBB) and US-born blacks (UBB) show similar cardiometabolic risk factors, despite CBB having lower coronary artery disease mortality. Further research is needed to explain this difference beyond smoking rates.

Area of Science:

  • Cardiology
  • Epidemiology
  • Public Health

Background:

  • Caribbean-born blacks (CBB) exhibit lower coronary artery disease (CAD) mortality compared to US-born blacks (UBB).
  • Understanding the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors is crucial for explaining these disparities.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To compare the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors between CBB and UBB.
  • To investigate potential reasons for lower CAD mortality rates in CBB.

Main Methods:

  • Prospective enrollment of 275 non-Hispanic Black patients hospitalized for chest pain in the Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Group (CORG) study.
  • Collection of clinical and demographic data, including history of myocardial infarction, smoking, family history of CAD, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and obesity.

Main Results:

  • CBB had lower rates of previous myocardial infarction (14% vs. 24%), less smoking (16% vs. 35%), and fewer with a family history of CAD (24% vs. 41%) compared to UBB.
  • Both groups showed a similarly high prevalence of hypertension (99% vs. 98%), diabetes (58% vs. 48%), dyslipidemia (53% vs. 42%), and obesity (34% vs. 40%).

Conclusions:

  • A high prevalence of hypertension is noted in non-Hispanic Black patients hospitalized for chest pain.
  • CBB and UBB share similar cardiometabolic profiles in this cohort.
  • Factors beyond smoking contribute to the lower CAD mortality observed in CBB and warrant further investigation.

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