Do Mexican Americans Really Have Low Rates of Cardiovascular Disease?

In this article we challenge the conclusion made from vital statistics that Hispanic Americans have lower all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality than non-Hispanic whites. There is reason to believe that vital statistics underascertain minority, and in particular Hispanic, deaths. Cohort studies minimize many of these limitations. In the San Antonio Heart Study risk factor distributions predicted higher all-cause and CVD mortality among Mexican Americans than among non-Hispanic whites. Follow-up of the cohort confirmed a mortality ratio of 1.38 for all-cause and 1.30 for CVD mortality for Mexican Americans vs non-Hispanic whites. This excess risk was confined to U.S.-born Mexican Americans, since immigrants from Mexico had very low mortality despite low socioeconomic status. We attribute this latter finding to a “healthy migrant effect.”