title: Cross-cultural comparison of the sleep-disordered breathing prevalence among Americans and Japanese.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to compare the prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing among Hispanic and white Americans and Japanese. A 1-night sleep study using a single-channel airflow monitor was performed on 211 Hispanics and 246 Whites from the Minnesota field centre (St Paul, MN, USA) of the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), and 978 Japanese from three community-based cohorts of the Circulatory Risk in Communities Study (CIRCS) in Japan. The respiratory disturbance index and sleep-disordered breathing, defined as a respiratory disturbance index of > or =15 events x h(-1), were estimated. The prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing was higher in males (34.2%) than females (14.7%), and among Hispanics (36.5%) and Whites (33.3%) than among Japanese (18.4%), corresponding to differences in body mass index. Within body mass index strata, the race difference in sleep-disordered breathing was attenuated. This was also true when body mass index was adjusted for instead of stratification. The strong association between body mass index and sleep-disordered breathing was similar in Japanese and Americans. The prevalence of sleep-disordered breathing was lower among Japanese than among Americans. However, the association of body mass index with sleep-disordered breathing was strong, and similar among the race/ethnic groups studied. The majority of the race/ethnic difference in sleep-disordered breathing prevalence was explained by a difference in body mass index distribution.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Public Health Medicine, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences and Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamagishi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ohira
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Bielinski
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sakurai
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Imano
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kiyama
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kitamura
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Konishi
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shahar
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Folsom
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Iso
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanigawa
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D012891:Sleep Apnea Syndromes / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014481:United States; D044465:White People