Coronary Heart Disease
According to the American Heart Association, from 2015 to 2018, 52.3% of Hispanic men and 42.7% of Hispanic women aged 20 years and older had cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Even so, Hispanic/Latinos were 10 percent less likely to have heart disease compared with non-Hispanic whites and had a thirty percent less likely chance to die from heart disease compared with non-Hispanic whites. In 2017, the Hispanic/Latino death rate from heart disease was 143.0 per 100,000 deaths for men and 87.6 per 100,000 deaths for women.
Results from the National Health Interview Survey indicated that Hispanics had lower mortality for coronary heart disease (CHD), with the Hispanic/ NHW mortality rate ratio (or odds ratio) for men was 0.77 (95% CI 0.64-0.93), and for women was 0.82 (95% CI 0.66-1.01) (Liao, Cooper, Cao, Kaufman, Long, & McGee, 1997). However, the proportion of total deaths due to CHD was similar for the two ethnicities (28.1% in Hispanic men vs. 29.7% in NHW men; 24.1% in Hispanic women vs. 24.9% in NHW women). Another study from the National Center for Health Statistics showed that mortality rates from sudden cardiac death (dying outside of hospital or emergency room) were also lower in Hispanics than non-Hispanic whites (Gillum, 1997). The age-adjusted rates per 100,000 were 75 deaths for Hispanic men vs.166 for NHW men and 35 for Hispanic women vs. 74 for NHW women.
These comparisons of CHD mortality between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites appear to give paradoxical results. Despite their adverse risk profiles, especially the greater risk of diabetes, Mexican Americans (MA), the largest Hispanic ethnic group, have been reported to have lower mortality rates from CHD. However, the Corpus Christi Heart Project performed a community-based surveillance of all death certificates from a county in Texas potentially relating to CHD, and used standardized methods blinded to ethnicity to validate the diagnoses (Pandey, Labarthe Goff, Chan, & Nichaman, 2001). CHD mortality was found to be 40% higher in MA women (RR=1.43, 95% CI 1.12 – 1.82); in men, the risk ratio (RR) was not significant
Cerebrovascular Disease
In 2018, cerebrovascular disease was the 3rd leading cause of death in Hispanic/Latino men over the age of 65 and the fourth leading cause of death for Hispanic/Latinowomen in the U.S (AoA). According to the American Heart Association, in 2019 5,649 Hispanic/Latino males and 6,310 Hispanic/Latino women died from stroke. Experts predict that by 2030, an addition 3.4 million will have a stroke, which is a projected increase of 20.5% in prevelance. This is lower than the projected increase of 29% in non-Hispanic whites.
Hispanics had excess mortality at earlier ages, and NHW’s rates were higher after the age 65 Comparisons of stroke mortality also were made in the National Longitudinal Mortality Study showing that stroke mortality was comparable in younger Hispanics, but marginally lower in older Hispanics (Howard, Anderson, Sorlie, Andrews, Backlund, & Burke, 1994).
Malignancies
Hispanic/Latinos have lower cancer rates overall with some notable exceptions:
- Twice as likely to have, and die, from liver cancers compared with non-Hispanic whites
- Twice as likely to be diagnosed, and die, from stomach cancer
- Hispanic/Latino women are 40 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer and thirty percent more likely to die than non-Hispanic white women.
