MORTALITY FROM CORONARY HEART-DISEASE AND CARDIOVASCULAR-DISEASE AMONG ADULT US HISPANICS - FINDINGS FROM THE NATIONAL-HEALTH INTERVIEW SURVEY (1986 TO 1994)

Objectives. We sought to estimate the coronary heart disease (CHD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality experience of U.S. Hispanics. Background. Limited information is available concerning the mortality from CHD among U.S. Hispanics, the nation's second largest minority gr oup. Methods. The study used data from the National Health Interview S urvey (1986 to 1994), including representative national samples of 246 ,239 non Hispanic whites, 38,042 blacks and 14,965 Hispanics who were greater than or equal to 45 pars old at baseline. Mean follow-up of mo rtality was 5 years (range 1 to 10). Results. During the follow-up per iod, 27,702 whites (11%), 4,976 blacks (13%) and 1,061 Hispanics (7%) died. Among men, the age-adjusted total mortality per 100,000 person-y ears was 3,089 in whites and 2,466 in Hispanics, and among women, it w as 1,897 and 1,581 in whites and Hispanics, respectively. The Hispanic /white mortality rate ratio for CHD was 0.77 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.64 to 0.93) and 0.82 (95% CI 0.66 to 1.01) for men and women, r espectively. The sate ratio was 0.79 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.91) and 0.80 (9 5% CI 0.69 to 0.94), respectively, for mortality from cardiovascular d iseases. Given the lower all-cause mortality in Hispanics, the proport ion of total deaths due to CHD and CVD was similar between the two pop ulations for the same gender and were, respectively, 29.7% and 44.7% i n white men, 28.1% and 44.3% in Hispanic men, 24.9% and 43.2% in white women and 24.1% and 41% in Hispanic women. Conclusions. These data fr om a cohort of a large national sample are consistent with vital stati stics that show that all-cause, CHD and CVD mortality is similar to 20 % lower among adult Hispanics than among whites in the United States. (C) 1997 by the American College of Cardiology.