A new Kaiser Permanente study presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention meeting this week underscores the significant differences in cardiovascular risk factors across Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander populations.

The research, part of the PANACHE (Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, and Asian American Cardiovascular Health Epidemiology) study, highlights the need for more targeted research on the health disparities within these groups. 

“Historically, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islander populations have frequently been grouped together in clinical and epidemiologic research, which masks important variations in both risk factor prevalence and disease burden,” said Rishi V. Parikh, MPH, senior research analyst at Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and lead author of the study. “Existing studies on Asian subgroups remain limited by small sample sizes and the exclusion of major disaggregated subgroups, along with a lack of long-term follow-up.”

The study analyzed the health records of approximately 700,000 adults from Kaiser Permanente Northern California and Kaiser Permanente Hawaii, spanning from 2012 to 2022. Participants included individuals who self-identified as Chinese, Filipino, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Southeast Asian (including Thai, Laotian, Cambodian, Hmong, Burmese, Indonesian, Malaysian, or Singaporean), and South Asian (including Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, Nepali, or Bhutanese).

Key findings revealed stark differences in the prevalence of common cardiovascular risk factors across subgroups:

• High blood pressure ranged from 12% in Chinese adults to 30% in Filipino adults.
• High cholesterol varied from 20% in Chinese adults to 33% in Filipino adults.
• Obesity prevalence spanned from 11% in Vietnamese adults to 41% in Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander adults.
• Type 2 diabetes was most prevalent in Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander adults (14%) compared to Chinese adults (5%).

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