Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Am J Public Health. 2013 May;103(5):e45-52. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300969. Epub 2013 Mar 14.
We examined whether acculturation and immigrant generation, a marker for assimilation, are associated with diabetes risk in an aging Mexican-origin population.
We analyzed data on 1789 adults aged 60 to 101 years from the Sacramento Area Latino Study on Aging. We ascertained type 2 diabetes on the basis of diabetic medication use, self-report of physician diagnosis, or a fasting glucose of 126 milligrams/deciliter or greater. Logistic regression modeled prevalent diabetes.
Adjusting for age and gender, we observed significant but divergent associations between immigrant generation, acculturation, and diabetes risk. Relative to first-generation adults, second-generation adults had an odds ratio (OR) of 1.8 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.4, 2.4) and third-generation adults had an OR of 2.1 (95% CI = 1.4, 3.1) of having diabetes. Greater US acculturation, however, was associated with a slightly decreased diabetes rate. In the full model adjusting for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, the association between generation (but not acculturation) and diabetes remained significant.
Our study lends support to the previously contested notion that assimilation is associated with an increased diabetes risk in Mexican immigrants. Researchers should examine the presence of a causal link between assimilation and health more closely.
我们研究了在一个老龄化的墨西哥裔人群中，文化适应的标志——同化和移民代际是否与糖尿病风险相关。
我们分析了来自萨克拉门托拉丁裔老龄化研究的 1789 名年龄在 60 至 101 岁的成年人的数据。我们根据使用糖尿病药物、医生诊断或空腹血糖 126 毫克/分升或更高来确定 2 型糖尿病。使用逻辑回归模型分析了现患糖尿病的情况。
在调整年龄和性别后，我们观察到移民代际、文化适应与糖尿病风险之间存在显著但不同的关联。与第一代成年人相比，第二代成年人的患病比值比（OR）为 1.8（95%置信区间[CI] = 1.4, 2.4），第三代成年人的 OR 为 2.1（95% CI = 1.4, 3.1）。然而，更高的美国文化适应程度与糖尿病发病率略有下降相关。在调整社会经济和生活方式因素的全模型中，代际（而非文化适应）与糖尿病之间的关联仍然显著。
我们的研究支持了之前有争议的观点，即同化与墨西哥移民的糖尿病风险增加有关。研究人员应更密切地研究同化与健康之间是否存在因果关系。
