Mortality from coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease among adult U.S. Hispanics: findings from the National Health Interview Survey (1986 to 1994).

OBJECTIVES: We sought to estimate the coronary heart disease (CHD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality experience of U.S. Hispanics.
BACKGROUND: Limited information is available concerning the mortality from CHD among U.S. Hispanics, the nation's second largest minority group.
METHODS: The study used data from the National Health Interview Survey (1986 to 1994), including representative national samples of 246,239 non-Hispanic whites, 38,042 blacks and 14,965 Hispanics who were > or = 45 years old at baseline. Mean follow-up of mortality was 5 years (range 1 to 10).
RESULTS: During the follow-up period, 27,702 whites (11%), 4,976 blacks (13%) and 1,061 Hispanics (7%) died. Among men, the age-adjusted total mortality per 100,000 person-years was 3,089 in whites and 2,466 in Hispanics, and among women, it was 1,897 and 1,581 in whites and Hispanics, respectively. The Hispanic/white mortality rate ratio for CHD was 0.77 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.64 to 0.93) and 0.82 (95% CI 0.66 to 1.01) for men and women, respectively. The rate ratio was 0.79 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.91) and 0.80 (95% CI 0.69 to 0.94), respectively, for mortality from cardiovascular diseases. Given the lower all-cause mortality in Hispanics, the proportion of total deaths due to CHD and CVD was similar between the two populations for the same gender and were, respectively, 29.7% and 44.7% in white men, 28.1% and 44.3% in Hispanic men, 24.9% and 43.2% in white women and 24.1% and 41% in Hispanic women.
CONCLUSIONS: These data from a cohort of a large national sample are consistent with vital statistics that show that all-cause, CHD and CVD mortality is approximately 20% lower among adult Hispanics than among whites in the United States.