2:30pm - 3:30pm (CDT) | 4206.0 - Place of birth and incident hypertension among US- and foreign-born veterans

Session: Veteran's Caucus Poster Session 4

Program: Veterans Caucus

Presenter: Carol Oladele, PhD, MPH

Abstract

Hypertension is a major source of morbidity among Veterans. This study examined differences in hypertension between foreign-born (FB) and US-born (USB) Veterans.
Data from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) was used. We included Veterans who received VHA services between 2001 and 2017 and were free of hypertension in 2001. Place of birth was extracted to categorize Veterans as FB or USB. Hypertension was defined using ICD-10 codes. Person-years were estimated from the date of the index VHA visit to the date of diagnosis of hypertension. Poisson regression models were used to estimate incidence rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Log-linear models compared hypertension incidence between FB and USB Veterans adjusting for demographic and clinical covariates.

The sample included 576,495 Veterans after excluding those without place of birth data. FB Veterans were younger on average, less likely to be current smokers and obese compared to USB Veterans. FB Veterans had lower incidence of hypertension compared to USB Veterans, except for White Veterans who had similar rates. Incidence rates were highest among USB Black Veterans (7830 per 100,000) followed by FB Black (5410 per 100,000) and USB White Veterans (3960 per 100,000). Age-specific rate ratios showed younger FB Veterans had higher risk of hypertension compared to USB Veterans. Adjusted logistic regression results FB Black and Hispanic Veterans had greater odds of hypertension compared with USB Black and Hispanic Veterans.

Disaggregating VHA data can be useful to inform initiatives to achieve equitable cardiovascular health among diverse Veteran groups.