Acculturation and Blood Pressure in a Community-based Sample of Chaldean-American Women

With the steady increase of non-European, non-English speaking immigrants to the United States, the relationship between acculturation and risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) is an issue of growing importance to researchers interested in the health of new immigrant populations. The influence of acculturation processes on adverse changes in blood pressure (BP), a major risk factor for CVD, has been examined in Hispanic-Americans and Asian-Americans. Published studies on this relationship in Arab-Americans are lacking, however, despite their growing numbers. With a specific focus on Chaldean-Americans, a major subgroup of the large Arab-American population located in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, the current study investigates the influence of level of acculturation on BP in a community probability sample of 130 Chaldean-American women. Study participants were interviewed in their homes (92% response rate). Physical measurements included BP, body mass index (BMI), and waist-hip ratio. Demographic and acculturation data were obtained through a standardized questionnaire. The crude hypertension prevalence in the sample was 16%. Three dimensions of acculturation were identified through content and factor analysis: English language preference, parental school involvement, and ethnic identity. In unadjusted analyses, both English language preference and Chaldean-American ethnic identity were associated (p < 0.01) with lower mean BP, but these differences became nonsignificant when age, BMI, and waist-hip ratio were statistically controlled. Parental school involvement was not associated with BP in any analyses. In this study, the strongest predictors of BP were BMI and waist-hip ratio, both of which were inversely correlated with age, education, English language preference, employment outside the home, and parental school involvement. Future studies of acculturation and BP in Chaldean-Americans (and other Arab-American populations) should use improved measures of acculturation, broader assessments of behavioral and socioeconomic status, and larger samples that includes both genders.