Health advantages of ethnic density for African American and Mexican American elderly individuals.
Research suggests that greater ethnic density correlates with worse health among African Americans but better health among Hispanic Americans. These conflicting patterns may arise from Hispanic American samples being older than African American samples. We found that among 2367 Mexican American and 2790 African American participants older than 65 years, ethnic density predicted lower rates of cardiovascular disease and cancer, adjusting for covariates, showing that the health benefits of ethnic density apply to both minority communities.
Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA. kja2126@columbia.edu
Kimberly J
KJ
Alvarez
Becca R
BR
Levy
D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D011156:Population Density; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology