TY - JOUR
T1 - The precarious health of young Mexican American men in South Texas, cameron county hispanic cohort, 2004-2015
AU - Watt, Gordon P.
AU - Vatcheva, Kristina P.
AU - Griffith, Derek M.
AU - Reininger, Belinda M.
AU - Beretta, Laura
AU - Fallon, Michael B.
AU - McCormick, Joseph B.
AU - Fisher-Hoch, Susan P.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank our cohort team, particularly Rocío Uribe and her team, who recruited and documented the participants. We also thank Pablo Sánchez and Israel Hernández for data management, Marcela Morris and other laboratory staff for their contributions, and Christina Villarreal and Norma Pérez-Olazarán for administrative support. We thank the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Brownsville for housing our Clinical Research Unit. This work was supported by the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences, which is funded by National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Award no. UL1 TR000371 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institutes of Health. This research was approved by the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston as HSC-SPH-03-007-B.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Introduction Hispanic men have higher rates of illness and death from various chronic conditions than do non-Hispanic men. We aimed to characterize the health of Mexican American men living on the US-Mexico border in South Texas and elucidate indications of chronic disease in young men. Methods We sampled all male participants from the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort, an ongoing population-based cohort of Mexican Americans in Brownsville, Texas. We calculated descriptive statistics and stratified the sample into 3 age groups to estimate the prevalence of sociodemographic, behavioral, and clinical factors by age group and evaluated differences between age groups. Results Obesity prevalence was approximately 50% across all age groups (P = .83). Diabetes prevalence was high overall (26.8%), and 16.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.1%-23.8%) of men younger than 35 had diabetes. More than 70% of these young men had elevated liver enzymes, and mean values of aspartate aminotransferase were significantly higher in younger men (45.0 u/L; 95% CI, 39.5-50.6 u/L) than in both older age groups. Less than 20% of young men had any form of health insurance. Current smoking was higher in young men than in men in the other groups, and the rate was higher than the national prevalence of current smoking among Hispanic men. Conclusions We suggest a need for obesity and diabetes prevention programs and smoking cessation programs for men in this region. Opportunities exist to expand current intervention programs and tailor them to better reach this vulnerable population of young Hispanic men. Elevated liver enzymes in men younger than 35 suggest a substantial burden of liver abnormalities, a finding that warrants further study.
AB - Introduction Hispanic men have higher rates of illness and death from various chronic conditions than do non-Hispanic men. We aimed to characterize the health of Mexican American men living on the US-Mexico border in South Texas and elucidate indications of chronic disease in young men. Methods We sampled all male participants from the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort, an ongoing population-based cohort of Mexican Americans in Brownsville, Texas. We calculated descriptive statistics and stratified the sample into 3 age groups to estimate the prevalence of sociodemographic, behavioral, and clinical factors by age group and evaluated differences between age groups. Results Obesity prevalence was approximately 50% across all age groups (P = .83). Diabetes prevalence was high overall (26.8%), and 16.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.1%-23.8%) of men younger than 35 had diabetes. More than 70% of these young men had elevated liver enzymes, and mean values of aspartate aminotransferase were significantly higher in younger men (45.0 u/L; 95% CI, 39.5-50.6 u/L) than in both older age groups. Less than 20% of young men had any form of health insurance. Current smoking was higher in young men than in men in the other groups, and the rate was higher than the national prevalence of current smoking among Hispanic men. Conclusions We suggest a need for obesity and diabetes prevention programs and smoking cessation programs for men in this region. Opportunities exist to expand current intervention programs and tailor them to better reach this vulnerable population of young Hispanic men. Elevated liver enzymes in men younger than 35 suggest a substantial burden of liver abnormalities, a finding that warrants further study.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84991442359&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84991442359&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5888/pcd13.160020
DO - 10.5888/pcd13.160020
M3 - Article
C2 - 27560721
AN - SCOPUS:84991442359
SN - 1545-1151
VL - 13
JO - Preventing Chronic Disease
JF - Preventing Chronic Disease
IS - 8
M1 - 160020
ER -