Objectives. To examine trends in the prevalence and disparities of traditional cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among the major race/ethnic groups in the USA: non-Hispanic Whites (NHWs), non-Hispanic Blacks (NHBs), and Mexican Americans (MAs). Methods. We used cross-sectional trend analysis in women and men aged 25–84 years participating in the NHANES surveys, years 1988–1994 ( ) and 1999–2004 ( ). Results. The prevalence of obesity and hypertension increased significantly in NHW and NHB, both in men and women; NHB had the highest prevalence of obesity and hypertension in each time period. Diabetes prevalence showed a nonsignificant increasing trend in all groups and was higher in MA in both periods. Smoking significantly decreased in NHW men and NHB, the latter with the largest decline although the highest prevalence in each period; no changes were noted in MA, who had the lowest prevalence in both periods. Race/ethnic CVD risk factors disparities widened for obesity and hypercholesterolemia, remained unchanged for diabetes and hypertension, and narrowed for smoking. Conclusions. The increasing prevalence of obesity and hypertension underscores the need for better preventive measures, particularly in the NHB group that exhibits the worst trends. The decline in smoking rates may offset some of these unfavorable trends. 1. Introduction It has been of note that despite the increasing obesity prevalence in the USA observed in previous decades, a decline in CVD risk factors has occurred which has been attributed to the influence of lifestyle changes and therapies [1–3]. However, in the last decade, CVD risk factor downward trends seem to have reached a plateau [1, 2] or even undergone the beginning of an unfavorable increase [2]. Many studies have documented race/ethnic differences in the prevalence of all major CVD risk factors [4–10]; a higher prevalence of hypertension in African Americans and diabetes in Hispanics are some well-known examples although limited information has been published on race/ethnic CVD risk factors trends over time. It was only since 1988 when the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) oversampled underrepresented race/ethnic groups, that accurate national estimates of Mexican and African Americans were available for race/ethnic-specific analyses. One of the overarching goals of the Healthy People 2010 initiative is to eliminate health disparities among USA race/ethnic groups. A better understanding of whether trends in the prevalence of obesity and other CVD risk factors follow a similar or different
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