Journal of Community & Public Health Nursing
Open Access

Research Article

Significant Associative Factors for Hypertension Among New US Immigrants: An exploration of the 2003 New Immigrant Survey (NIS) Data

¹Department of Systems, Populations and Leadership, University of Michigan, School of Nursing, USA

²Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Michigan- Flint, 3124 William S White Bldg 303 E Kearsley St, Flint, USA

³National Institute on Aging, NIA/NIH/IRP, Baltimore, USA

⁴Occupational Health Nursing Program, University of Michigan School of Nursing, 400 N. Ingalls St. Ann Arbor, USA

*Corresponding Author:

Marie-Anne S. Rosemberg, PhD, MN, RN
Assistant Professor, Department of Systems
Populations and Leadership
University of Michigan
School of Nursing, USA
Tel: 734-647-0146
E-mail: sanon@umich.edu

Received date: Mar 21, 2016; Accepted date: Apr 22, 2016; Published date: Apr 29, 2016

Citation: Rosemberg MAS, Lawrence VJ, Rostant OS, McCullagh MC (2016) Significant Associative Factors for Hypertension Among New US Immigrants: An exploration of the 2003 New Immigrant Survey (NIS) Data. J Comm Pub Health Nurs 2:118. doi:10.4172/2471-9846.1000118

Copyright: © 2016 Rosemberg MAS et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Immigrants make up a large number of the US population and are at risk for poor health outcomes such as hypertension, a major public health concern. Little is known about the associating factors of hypertension among recent US immigrants.

Method: Using the New Immigrant Survey (NIS) data with a subsample of 7539, we attempt to address this gap. We ran descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis to analyze the data using covariates including age, education, gender, age, weight, and smoking, with hypertension as the outcome variable.

Results: Only 10% of our sample had hypertension. Controlling for other factors, employed participants had lower odds of hypertension (OR=0.77, 95% CI=0.60, 0.99). Length of stay was associated with increased odds of hypertension (OR=1.01, 95% CI =1.00-1.02). Additional factors increasing odds of hypertension included women (OR=1.52, 95% CI=1.24-1.86), older age (OR=1.08, 95% CI=1.07-1.09), and body weight (OR=1.01, 95% CI=1.01-1.02).

Conclusion: This study accentuates the underreporting of hypertension among immigrant populations. The findings also indicate the need for nurses and other health providers to develop systems of care that are sensitive to the unique needs of this population. More studies are needed to explore the extent to which those associative factors identified impact hypertension development and management among new immigrants.

Keywords