Trend in the prevalence of overweight and obesity among urban African American hospital employees and public housing residents.
BACKGROUND
To help understand the impact of socioeconomic status, we examined the current prevalence and age-specific trend in overweight and obesity among two socioeconomically diverse groups of African Americans in the Washington, DC, area.


METHODS
Data on height and weight were collected between March 1995 and December 1996 as a part of nutrition survey to develop a food frequency questionnaire. Gender-stratified multiple logistic regression analyses were used to examine factors related to the current prevalence of overweight and obesity.


RESULTS
Three hundred nine African American public housing residents and 293 African American hospital employees participated in this survey. Overall, hospital workers and public housing residents differed significantly in the distribution of BMI (p = 0.003). Among men, the prevalence of overweight and obesity were 34.9% and 29.4% for hospital workers and 27.0% and 18.2% for public housing residents, respectively. For females these rates were 31.3% and 46.3% for hospital employees and 26.1% and 42.9% for public housing residents, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Overweight and obesity were highly prevalent among all age and socioeconomic groups. Future research should focus on a more in-depth study of the relationship between socioeconomic status and the correlates of obesity among African-Americans, particularly women.
Department of Epidemiology, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA. shaversv@mail.nih.gov
Vickie L
VL
Shavers
Sharada
S
Shankar
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D004219:District of Columbia / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D009765:Obesity / Q000208:ethnology*; D010564:Personnel, Hospital; D015995:Prevalence; D011638:Public Housing; D012923:Social Class; D014505:Urban Population