Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Apr 15;31(2):235-242.
doi: 10.18865/ed.31.2.235. eCollection 2021 Spring.

Health Risks and Chronic Health Conditions among Arab American and White Adults in Northern California

Nadia N Abuelezam  1 , Abdulrahman M El-Sayed  2 , Sandro Galea  3 , Nancy P Gordon  4
Affiliations

Health Risks and Chronic Health Conditions among Arab American and White Adults in Northern California

Nadia N Abuelezam et al. Ethn Dis. .

Abstract

Objectives: To characterize the prevalence of chronic cardiovascular conditions and risk factors among Arab American adults stratified by sex and compare these with non-Hispanic Whites.

Design: Cross-sectional study using electronic health record data from visits between January 2015 and December 2016. Age-adjusted prevalence estimates were calculated for men and women and compared using generalized linear models.

Setting: Kaiser Permanente health plan in Northern California.

Participants: Non-Hispanic White (N=969,566) and Arab American (N=18,072) adult members.

Main outcome measures: Sex-stratified prevalence and prevalence ratios of diabetes, pre-diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia diagnosed by December 2016 and of obesity, ever smoking, and current smoking status.

Results: Arab American men had a significantly higher prevalence of ever smoking (41.8 vs 40.8%), diabetes (17.3 vs 12.5%), and hyperlipidemia (40.8 vs 34.7%) than White men, but a significantly lower prevalence of obesity (34.4 vs 37.8%) and hypertension (30.5 vs 33.3%). Arab American women had a significantly higher prevalence of diabetes (11.1 vs 8.7%) and hyperlipidemia (31.5 vs 28.3%) than White women but significantly lower prevalence of obesity (31.0 vs 34.2%), ever smoking (24.8 vs 34.5%), and hypertension (25.8 vs 28.4%).

Conclusions: Hospital and health systems should intentionally collect data on Middle Eastern and North African ethnicity in electronic health records to identify and reduce the disparities this minority group faces.

Keywords: Arab Americans; California; Chronic Disease; Health Disparities; Risk Factors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: None declared.

References

    1. Arab American Institute Foundation . Arab American Demographics. 2014. Last accessed March 15, 2021 from https://yallacountmein.org/materials/arab-amreican-demographics.
    1. Abuelezam NN, El-Sayed AM, Galea S. Relevance of the “immigrant health paradox” for the health of Arab Americans in California. Am J Public Health. 2019;109(12):1733-1738. 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305308 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abuelezam NN, El-Sayed AM, Galea S. Arab American health in a racially charged US. Am J Prev Med. 2017;52(6):810-812. 10.1016/j.amepre.2017.02.021 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dallo FJ, Ruterbusch JJ, Kirma JD, Schwartz K, Fakhouri M. A health profile of Arab Americans in Michigan: a novel approach to using a hospital administrative database. J Immigr Minor Health. 2016;18(6):1449-1454. 10.1007/s10903-015-0296-8 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Dallo FJ, Prabhakar D, Ruterbusch J, et al. Screening and follow-up for depression among Arab Americans. Depress Anxiety. 2018;35(12):1198-1206. 10.1002/da.22817 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources