Heart Care Info - Heart Disease Prevention & Treatment

Obesity and cardiovascular disease risk among Turkish and Moroccan migrant groups in Europe: a systematic review

JK Ujcic‐Voortman, CA Baan, JC Seidell... - Obesity ..., 2011 - Wiley Online Library Migrants from Turkey and Morocco are among the largest ethnic minority groups in several European countries. In this review, we aimed to systematically search, assess and describe the available literature on cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity and other endogenous ...

In spite of the fact that these migrant groups constitute a considerable part of the European population, they are often poorly represented in epidemiological studies (3). Uitewaal et al. concluded in their 2004 review that the amount of literature concerning major risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among Turkish and Moroccan migrant groups in Europe was very limited (4). Unfortunately so, as they are mostly vulnerable groups with poorer health as well as socioeconomic perspectives (5). In fact, compared to the host populations of the countries they live in, higher obesity and diabetes prevalence rates as well as less favourable CVD risk profiles among these migrant groups have been reported (6 8). Obesity has recently been labelled a tsumani that threatens all regions of the world (9). Its rapidly increasing prevalence is a major public health concern as it highly contributes to the burden of disease in general and CVD in particular, the leading cause of death worldwide (10,11). Given the indications that Turkish and Moroccan migrant groups might be at relative high risk of obesity and CVD, their needs in terms of risk prevention are likely to be different. Therefore, monitoring trends in CVD risk, including obesity, among these migrant groups is of great importance.