• Megha K Shah, Nikhila Gandrakota, Unjali P Gujral, Nadia Islam, NarayanK M VenkatKMVHubert Department of Global Health, Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, Atlanta, GA, USA., and Mohammed K Ali.
• Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Dunwoody, GA, USA. mkshah@emory.edu.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2023 Feb 1; 38 (3): 571581571-581.

BackgroundDiabetes and hypertension are common in Asian Americans and vary by subgroup. There may be further variation by social determinants of health (SDOHs), but few studies have examined this previously.ObjectiveTo examine the associations of SDOHs and diabetes and hypertension within and across Asian subgroups in the USA DESIGN: Series cross-sectional analyses SETTING: National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS) from 1999 to 2018 PARTICIPANTS: Asian-American adults (Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian, and Other Asian [Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and other]) MEASUREMENTS: Self-reported diabetes and hypertension prevalence in pooled 5-year increments over 1999-2018 and multivariable regression models to assess the adjusted prevalence of diabetes or hypertension by poverty, marital status, education, and years in the USA, adjusting for age, sex, BMI, and health insurance status RESULTS: From 1999-2003 to 2014-2018, the age- and sex-adjusted prevalence of diabetes increased for Other Asians (absolute change: 4.6%) but not for other subgroups; age- and sex-adjusted hypertension prevalence significantly increased for Asian Indians and Other Asians (absolute change: 5-7.5%). For Filipinos, high school education or less was associated with an increase in diabetes prevalence over time (difference from 1999-2003 to 2014-2018: +6.0 (95% CI: 2.0-10.0)), while for Asian Indians, college education or higher was associated with an increase in diabetes prevalence for the same period (difference: +2.7 (95% CI: 0.01-5.4). Differences over the 2 time periods (1999-2003 and 2014-2018) show that Filipino and Other Asians, who lived in the USA for ≥10 years, increased in diabetes prevalence. Similar variations in associations of SDOHs by Asian subgroup were seen for hypertension.LimitationsSelf-reported primary outcomes and multi-year data were pooled due to small sample sizes.ConclusionsThe influence of SDOHs on cardiometabolic risk is not uniform among Asian Americans, implying tailored strategies may be needed for different population subgroups.Primary Funding SourceNIH.© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Society of General Internal Medicine.

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