Racial differences in lipid care. (Cardiology).

Screening for and treatment of hypercholesterolemia differ appreciably along racial and ethnic lines, even after adjusting for socioeconomic variability.

African Americans and Mexican Americans are less likely to undergo cholesterol screening and medically indicated lipid-lowering drug therapy than are whites of the same income status, Dr. Keith C. Norris said at a meeting sponsored by the International Society on Hypertension in Blacks.

The conclusion is based on data for nearly 16,000 adults who completed the Third National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) home questionnaire. The study population was 84% white, 11% African American, and 5% Mexican American.

Individuals with no health insurance, those who were less educated, the poor, and smokers were more likely to be among the 37% of subjects who had not had their cholesterol checked. After adjusting for these factors, however, African Americans and Mexican Americans remained 30% less likely than whites to have had their cholesterol measured, said Dr. Norris of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles.

Among individuals whose elevated cholesterol warranted lipid-lowering drug therapy under current national guidelines, the adjusted odds that an African American would be on such therapy were fully 70% less than in whites. ...