Zarmine Naccashian, Marianne Hattar-Pollara, Chong Ho and Sareen Pateel Ayvazian
California State University, USA
Azusa Pacific University, USA
University of Southern California, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Diabetes Metab
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypertension (HTN) along with associated risk factors among Armenian Americans living in Los Angeles. Methods: After IRB approval, a sample of 877 Armenian Americans was collected for five consecutive years (2011-2015) at a health fair. Collected data included: Sociodemographic variables, cardio metabolic data including systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, glucose (Glu) and lipids, anthropometric data including height (Ht.), weight (Wt.), body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC). A retrospective, descriptive correlation, test of significance and logistic regression analysis were performed. Results: Findings showed that about 50% of the participants had abnormal waist/hip ratio and approximately ΒΌ of the subjects had glucose levels that were indicative of high risk for DM. Logistic regression analysis revealed that high SBP (p=0.04), above normal WC (p=0.03), high TG (p=0.04) were significant in predicting DM. Moreover, age (p=0.0001), family history of CVD (p=0.01) and above normal WC (p=0.04) were found to be significant predictors of HTN. Conclusion: WC indicated to be a strong predictor for DM and HBP. Early detection and timely interventions are important to prevent DM and HTN and their associated complications. For underserved population health fairs become one effective avenue for screening, referral and evaluation. zarmine.naccashian@csun.edu
