Asian-Americans with heart failure likely to face other chronic diseases
The University at Albany has found that Asian-Americans with heart failure are likely to have other diseases, such as hypertension, renal disease and diabetes.
Assistant professor of health policy and management at UAlbany’s School of Public Health Feng Qian studied over 15, 000 heart failure patients – 3,774 of them Asian-Americans.
Overall, he found Asian-American patients had comparable quality of care, but were less likely to receive medicine upon discharge from the hospital, including diuretics called aldosterone antagonists and blood thinners for abnormal heart rhythm.
The study also showed Asian-American patients were on average younger, more likely to be male, and to not have insurance or covered by Medicaid. Compared with white patients, Asian-American patients had a similar likelihood of hospital stays greater than four days and risk rates for dying while in the hospital. However, the study showed Asian-Americans were more likely to be discharged home.
Qian said there’s been few studies that look at heart health within the Asian-America patients. Yet, they’ve become the fast growing racial group in the United States, with a growth rate of 2.9 %.
“Asian-American health is one I have a passion for,” Qian said. “I also think it is understudied and very heterogeneous. We need to dig deeper and find out more about each sub group, to help in diagnosis, disease education, health promotion and treatment.”
The research report notes Asian community have different cultural attitudes and traditions toward health and medicine, determining whether and how they reach out for help, their views on medicine and more. However, Qian believes much deeper study is needed to develop better culturally-tailored strategies for health education and preventative care.
This is the third major paper Qian has published on Asian-Americans and heart health since 2012. He’s received funding from the American Heart Association on all three projects.
To learn more about Dr. Qian’s research visit the American Heart Association’s official blog. Also view his official UAlbany expert page.
Category: Features, Health alert