Minority Health and Health Equity Archive

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769

Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.NHANES

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    A comparison of national estimates of obesity prevalence from the behavioral risk factor surveillance system and the national health and nutrition examination survey
    (2006) Yun, S; Zhu, B-P; Black, W; Brownson, R C
    Background: Obesity interventions are implemented at state or sub-state level in the United States (US), where only self-reported weight and height data for adults are available from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The prevalence estimates of overweight and obesity generated from self-reported weight and height from BRFSS are known to underestimate the true prevalence. However, whether this underestimation is consistent across different demographic groups has not been fully investigated. Methods: In this study, we compared the prevalence estimates of obesity (body mass index (BMI) 30 kg/m2) and overweight (BMI 25 kg/m2) in different demographic groups in the US from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and BRFSS during 1999–2000. We also compared the rank orders of the obesity and overweight prevalence across different demographic groups from the two data sources. Results: Compared to NHANES, BRFSS underestimated the overall prevalence of obesity and overweight by 9.5 and 5.7 percentage points, respectively. The underestimation differed across different demographic groups: the underestimation of obesity and overweight prevalence was higher among women (13.1 and 12.2 percentage points, respectively) than among men (5.8 and -0.6 percentage points, respectively). The variation of underestimation was higher among men. A clear inverse association between educational attainment and obesity prevalence among non-Hispanic African American women was observed from BRFSS data. However, no such association was found from NHANES. While BRFSS can identify correctly the population with the highest obesity and overweight burden, it did not accurately rank the obesity and overweight prevalence across different demographic groups. Conclusion: Compared to NHANES, BRFSS disproportionately underestimates the prevalence of obesity and overweight across different gender, race, age, and education subgroups.
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    Race/ethnicity, social class and their relation to physical inactivity during leisure time: results from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–1994
    (2000) Crespo, Carlos J; Smit, Ellen; Andersen, Ross E; Carter-Pokras, Olivia; Ainsworth, Barbara E
    Background: Physical inactivity is more prevalent among racial and ethnic minorities than among Caucasians. It is not known if differences in participation in leisure time physical activity are due to differences in social class. Thus, this paper provides estimates of the prevalence of physical inactivity during leisure time and its relationship to race/ethnicity and social class. Methods: This was a national representative cross-sectional survey with an in-person interview and medical examination. Between 1988 and 1994, 18,885 adults aged 20 or older responded to the household adult and family questionnaires as part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey . Mexican-Americans and African-Americans were over-sampled to produce reliable estimates for these groups. Multiple assessment of social class included education, family income, occupation, poverty status, employment status, and marital status. Results: The age-adjusted prevalence (per 100) of adults reporting leisure time inactivity is lower among Caucasians (18%) than among African-Americans (35%) and Mexican-Americans (40%). African-American and Mexican-American men and women reported higher prevalence of leisure time inactivity than their Caucasian counterparts across almost every variable, including education, family income, occupation, employment, poverty and marital status. Conclusions: Current indicators of social class do not seem to explain the higher prevalence of physical inactivity during leisure time among African-American and Mexican-American. More research is needed to examine the effect of other constructs of social class such as acculturation, safety, social support and environmental barriers in promoting successful interventions to increase physical activity in these populations.