Obesity and gestational diabetes among African-American women and Latinas in Detroit: implications for disparities in women's health.

OBJECTIVE

to estimate the prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), obesity, and excessive weight gain during pregnancy among Latinas and African-American women in a large Detroit health system and explore risk factors associated with GDM and its implications.

METHODS

Descriptive statistics, chi2 tests, analysis of variance, and logistic regression analyses were used to describe the prevalence of obesity, excessive pregnancy weight gain, and GDM and to assess factors associated with GDM risk in a cohort of 552 African-American women and 653 Latinas in a large Detroit health system.

RESULTS

Women ranged in age from 14 to 47 years. Almost 47% of African-American women and 37% of Latinas were overweight or obese, and 53% of African-American women and 38% of Latinas gained excessive weight during pregnancy. The prevalence of GDM was 5.4% among Latinas and 3.9% among African-American women. After adjusting for other risk factors, Latinas were 2.5 times more likely than African Americans to develop GDM. Other independent risk factors were family history of diabetes, age, body mass index, and gestational weight gain before 28 weeks.

CONCLUSION

Because most women have repeated contact with the health care system during and immediately after pregnancy, care providers have unique opportunities to identify and assist those who are at risk of obesity and diabetes.