Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine have published a study in the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology that reveals an alarming cardiovascular health trend in foreign-born Asian Americans — a startling 28 percent decline in CVH from 2011-2020. The findings also revealed a worsening of factors influencing CVH the longer they lived in the United States, likely due to developing poor health behaviors and dietary habits, according to the researchers.
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing demographic group in the United States and are projected to account for 10 percent of the U.S. population by 2060, according to Pew Research Center. CVH in Asian Americans may be influenced by factors such as their place of birth and their duration of residence in the United States.
“Since cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Asian Americans, characterizing CVH and identifying factors that influence CVH in Asian Americans may promote targeted preventive health measures to reduce the burden of CVD,” said Naman S. Shetty, M.D., a research fellow in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease and the first author of the study.
Shetty and his team used the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey database to analyze Asian Americans from 2011-2020 and generate nationwide population-level estimates of the CVH of approximately 8.9 million adults. The research team used Life’s Essential 8 score to quantify the CVH in this study. The LE8 score is a new metric introduced by the American Heart Association that improves the accuracy of measuring CVH.
They found that the CVH in Asian Americans declined across the decade-long study period. The team found this decline in CVH was driven by foreign-born Asian Americans, while the CVH in U.S.-born Asian Americans did not change from 2011-2020. These notable differences in the trends of CVH were attributed to social determinants of health, such as access to health care, language barriers and cultural beliefs.
The team also found that the odds of ideal CVH decreased in foreign-born Asian Americans with increasing duration of stay in the United States. The deterioration in CVH may be due to acculturation, explained Pankaj Arora, M.D., the senior author of the manuscript and an associate professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease.