HIP FRACTURE INCIDENCE AMONG ELDERLY ASIAN-AMERICAN POPULATIONS

This study estimated national age-and sex-specific nontraumatic hip fr acture incidence rates for elderly Chinese Americans, Japanese America ns, and Korean Americans, Based on a 50 percent sample of 1992 Medicar e enrollees with the race/ethnicity code ''Asian'' and ''other,'' coho rts of persons with distinctive Chinese (n = 24,366), Japanese (n = 28 ,762), and Korean (n = 5,470) names were followed passively for 2 year s for a hospitalization with a diagnostic code indicating hip fracture . Cohorts of whites and blacks were followed for comparison, Year of i mmigration was deduced from the year of issuance of the Social Securit y number. Age-adjusted hip fracture incidence was lower for all three Asian-American groups than for whites. For females, the standardized f racture ratio relative to whites was 30.1 for Chinese, 73.2 for Japane se, and 52.8 for Koreans; for males, the standardized fracture ratio w as 41.9 for Chinese, 58.1 for Japanese, and 90.7 for Koreans. Persons whose Social Security numbers were issued after the Immigration Act of 1965 had an adjusted relative risk of 1.37 (95% confidence interval 1 .05-1.78) compared with those in the US before that year, after adjust ment for age, sex, and ethnic group.