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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. May 15, 2015; 6(4): 543-547
Published online May 15, 2015. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v6.i4.543
Published online May 15, 2015. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v6.i4.543
Type 2 diabetes among Asian Americans: Prevalence and prevention
Tam H Nguyen, Taylor Fischer, William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, United States
Thuc-Nhi Nguyen, Thanh V Tran, Graduate School of Social Work, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, United States
Won Ha, Graduate School of Social Work Library, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, United States
Author contributions: Nguyen TH, Nguyen TN, Fischer T and Ha W helped search and review the literature; all authors helped draft and review the article.
Conflict-of-interest: Dr. Nguyen has nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Tam H Nguyen, PhD, MSN/MPH, RN, Assistant Professor, William F. Connell School of Nursing, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Ave, Cushing Hall 336C, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, United States. tam.nguyen@bc.edu
Telephone: +1-617-5523669 Fax: +1-617-552366
Received: November 28, 2014
Peer-review started: November 29, 2014
First decision: January 8, 2015
Revised: January 31, 2015
Accepted: February 10, 2015
Article in press: February 12, 2015
Published online: May 15, 2015
Peer-review started: November 29, 2014
First decision: January 8, 2015
Revised: January 31, 2015
Accepted: February 10, 2015
Article in press: February 12, 2015
Published online: May 15, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Current estimates suggest that type 2 diabetes affects approximately 9% of Asian Americans overall. However, when examining disaggregated data across different ethnic groups Filipino, Pacific Islander, Japanese, and South Asian groups consistently have the highest prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus. This highlights how aggregating Asian Americans into one category can potentially mask the disease burden in high risk groups, while inflating the burden in low risk groups. Prevention efforts therefore need be culturally tailored to meet the unique needs of the various Asian American ethnic groups. In addition, prevention efforts should address both individual and population level strategies.