Eileen M. Crimmins ^1*, Jung Ki Kim ¹, Dawn E. Alley ¹, Arun Karlamangla ², Teresa Seeman ²

¹ University of Southern California
² University of California Los Angeles

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: crimmin{at}usc.edu.

	Abstract

Objectives. We examined biological risk profiles by race, ethnicity, and nativity to evaluate evidence for a Hispanic paradox in measured health indicators.

Methods. We used data on adults aged 40 years and older (n=4206) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (1999-2002) to compare blood pressure, metabolic, and inflammatory risk profiles for Whites, Blacks, US-born and foreign-born Hispanics, and Hispanics of Mexican origin. We controlled for age, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Results. Hispanics have more risk factors above clinical risk levels than Whites but fewer than Blacks. Differences between Hispanics and Whites disappeared after we controlled for socioeconomic status, but results differed by nativity. After we controlled for socioeconomic status accounted for differences between foreign-born Hispanics and Whites were eliminated, but US-born Mexican Americans still had higher biological risk scores than did both Whites and foreign-born Mexican Americans.

Conclusions. There is no Hispanic paradox in biological risk profiles. However, our finding that foreign-born Hispanics and Whites had similar biological risk profiles, but US-born Mexican Americans had higher risk, was consistent with hypothesized effects of migrant health selectivity (healthy people in-migrating and unhealthy people out-migrating) as well as differences in behaviors and access to care between US-born and foreign-born Hispanics.

Key Words: Epidemiology, Hispanics/Latinos, Race/Ethnicity

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