Prior studies of immigrants to the United States show significant weight gain after 10 years of US residence. Pediatric refugees are a vulnerable population whose post-immigration weight trajectory has not been studied. We examined the longitudinal weight trajectory of 1067 pediatric refugees seen in a single university based refugee health program between the dates of September 3, 2012 and September 3, 2014 to determine how quickly significant weight gain occurs post-arrival. The most recent BMI was abstracted from the electronic health record and charts reviewed to obtain serial BMI measurements in 3 year increments after the date of US arrival. The mean arrival BMI percentile for all refugees was 47th percentile. This increased significantly to the 63rd percentile within 3 years of US arrival (p < 0.01). This rapid increase was largely attributable to African and South and Southeast Asian refugees. The overall prevalence of age and sex adjusted obesity rose from 7.4 % at arrival to 18.3 % within 9 years of US immigration exceeding the pediatric US national obesity prevalence of 16.9 %. Pediatric refugees are at increased risk of rapid weight gain after US immigration. Targeted interventions focused on prevention of weight gain in specific populations are warranted.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/623519 |
| Date | 08 July 2016 |
| Creators | Olson, Brad G., Kurland, Yonatan, Rosenbaum, Paula F., Hobart, Travis R. |
| Contributors | Department of Pediatrics, University of Arizona |
| Publisher | SPRINGER |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article |
| Rights | © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 |
| Relation | http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10903-016-0461-8 |
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