Australian residence and heart disease risk in Vietnamese-born women

SummaryThe aim of this study was to compare the disease risk profile of Vietnamese women who have lived in Australia for 2–15 years with a newly arrived group of Vietnamese women. The design was a comparison of two cross-sectional surveys (n = 256); one newly arrived (n = 159) and one (n = 97) who had lived in Australia for 2–15 years. The main outcome measures were body mass index (BMI), waist to hip ratio (WHR), total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and TC/HDL ratio (atherogenic index). The longer-stay residents had similar BMI (21.5 ± 3.5 kg/m2 vs. 21.1 ± 3.1 kg/m2, p = 0.2); lower waist (69.3 ± 7.5 cm vs. 71.4 ± 7.6 cm, p = 0.8), WHR (0.76 ± 0.06 vs. 0.80 ± 0.06, p = 0.0001), TC (4.7 ± 1.0 mmol/L vs. 4.9 ± 0.9 mmol/L, p = 0.001), TC/HDL (3.0 ± 2.0 vs. 4.7 ± 2.0, p = 0.006) and higher hip measurement (91.1 ± 7.4 cm vs. 89.1 ± 5.6 cm, p = 0.009) than newly arrived Vietnamese women. After adjustment for BMI and age the odds of having a higher waist and WHR was significantly less for longer-stay residents, while the odds of having larger hips was doubled. The odds of having a high atherogenic index as estimated by the TC/HDL ratio was halved for the longer-stay residents (p = 0.15). We conclude that Vietnamese women we surveyed who have lived in Australia for 2–15 years have the same BMI, but lower levels of abdominal obesity and lower atherogenic index than newly arrived Vietnamese women surveyed.