Behavioral risk factor survey of Vietnamese--California, 1991

Abstract

Since 1975, an estimated 979,700 refugees from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries have immigrated to the United States (L. Bussert, Office of Refugee Resettlement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, personal communication, 1991). Although public health agencies have reported extensively on the occurrence of infectious diseases in these populations (1-4), the prevalence of risk factors for noninfectious health concerns (e.g., heart disease, cancer, and unintentional injuries) have not been well defined. To characterize risk factors for selected noninfectious diseases and injuries among the estimated 280,200 Vietnamese who have relocated to California, the University of California, San Francisco, and the California Department of Health Services developed a Vietnamese-language version of CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) for use in a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system. This report summarizes findings from the 1991 survey and compares them with data for the general California or U.S. population.