title: Younger and Sicker: Comparing Micronesians to Other Ethnicities in Hawaii.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We compared the age at admission and the severity of illness of hospitalized Micronesians with 3 other racial/ethnic groups in Hawaii.
  
  
  METHODS
  With Hawaii Health Information Corporation inpatient data, we determined the age at admission and the severity of illness for 162,152 adult, non-pregnancy-related hospital discharges in Hawaii from 2010 to 2012. We performed multivariable linear regression analyses within major disease categories by racial/ethnic group. We created disease categories with all patient refined-diagnosis related groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Hospitalized Micronesians were significantly younger at admission than were comparison racial/ethnic groups across all patient refined-diagnosis related group categories. The severity of illness for Micronesians was significantly higher than was that of all comparison racial/ethnic groups for cardiac and infectious diseases, higher than was that of Whites and Japanese for cancer and endocrine hospitalizations, and higher than was that of Native Hawaiians for substance abuse hospitalizations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Micronesians were hospitalized significantly younger and often sicker than were comparison populations. Our results will be useful to researchers, state governments, and hospitals, providers, and health systems for this vulnerable group.
authors.affiliation: Megan Kiyomi Inada Hagiwara and Tetine Lynn Sentell are with the Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Jill Miyamura is with the Hawaii Health Information Corporation, Honolulu. Seiji Yamada is with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.
authors.forename: Megan Kiyomi Inada
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Hagiwara
authors.affiliation: Megan Kiyomi Inada Hagiwara and Tetine Lynn Sentell are with the Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Jill Miyamura is with the Hawaii Health Information Corporation, Honolulu. Seiji Yamada is with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miyamura
authors.affiliation: Megan Kiyomi Inada Hagiwara and Tetine Lynn Sentell are with the Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Jill Miyamura is with the Hawaii Health Information Corporation, Honolulu. Seiji Yamada is with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.
authors.forename: Seiji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.affiliation: Megan Kiyomi Inada Hagiwara and Tetine Lynn Sentell are with the Office of Public Health Studies, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Jill Miyamura is with the Hawaii Health Information Corporation, Honolulu. Seiji Yamada is with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.
authors.forename: Tetine
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sentell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D044466:Asian People; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006254:Hawaii / Q000453:epidemiology; D006760:Hospitalization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008849:Micronesia / Q000208:ethnology; D008875:Middle Aged; D044468:Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D044465:White People