Variation in hypertensive disease/stroke mortality among hispanic migrants to New York City.

In New York City, consistent with US national data, Hispanics have lower cardiovascular disease, but higher hypertensive disease/stroke mortality, than do non-Hispanic whites. Annual age-adjusted death rates ( ) in 1988-1992 for cardiovascular disease and hypertensive disease/stroke for New York City Hispanics and non-Hispanic white males were 199.6, 30.6 and 280.1, 24.0 respectively. To determine whether birthplace influenced cardiovascular mortality of Hispanics migrants to New York City, the 1988-1992 death records and 1990 US census data have been analyzed. Among Hispanic migrants to New York City (1,018,941), there were 391,181 from Puerto Rico, 275,661 from Caribbean, 113,541 from Central America and 177,938 from South America with a mean age (years) of 43,37,33,36; % males: 44,45,51,49; % above high school education: 44,49,54,69 and % employment: 64,77,85,85 respectively. With US 1940 population as standard, annual age-adjusted death rates ( ) of males for hypertensive disease/stroke in Hispanics by birthplace were 38.5, 30.5, 28.0, 16.4 for Puerto Rico, Caribbean, Central America and South America respectively. Migrants from Puerto Rico thus had more than twice the hypertensive disease/stroke mortality than did those born in South America. Female patterns were similar at lower rates. In summary, although overall, the hypertensive disease/stroke mortality of Hispanics exceeded that of whites, this masked substantial heterogeneity within the Hispanic population. Indeed, South American migrants had lower death rates for hypertensive disease/stroke than non-Hispanic whites. Socioeconomic status as reflected by education and employment may be associated with this variation in mortality among Hispanic migrants to New York City. In particular, a higher educational status characterizes South American migrants, among whom, hypertensive disease/stroke mortality is lowest.