Risk of cardiovascular diseases in immigrants for chosen nationalities and locations in the Czech Republic

Topic of this article is based on research results from a project named "Health and social situation of immigrants and recognized refugees living in the Czech Republic" (reg. n. OC 10031) adopted by the COST Grant Agency (abbr. COST - Cooperation on Scientific and Technical Research) and financed during the period of 2010 through to May 2011. The research question posed, namely "whether chosen characteristics of social situation are related to chosen aspects of health", stems from the conceptual frame of social determinants of health. Target group for this research are the following nationalities: Ukrainians, Vietnamese and Mongolians between the ages 18 and 65, 246 respondents in total. In terms of this research the occurrence of three influenceable risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, namely smoking, hypertension and obesity was questioned. Based on the BMI of the respondents, their morbidity risk was also evaluated. This indicator was statistically tested related to non-influenceable risk factors of cardiovascular diseases (gender, age) and to other social variables (occupation type, education, occupation category). By statistical testing the significance level of α = 0.05 was statistically significant for dependence between smoking and the immigrant gender (p = 0.000), age (p = 0.000) and nationality (p = 0.001). On the same level of significance dependence of exposure to smoky environment and occupation category was also statistically proven (p = 0.012). On a lower significance level of α = 0.05 statistically significant dependence between smoking and occupation type (p = 0.372) and education of respondents (p = 0.884) was not found. On the significance level of α = 0.05 the morbidity risk according to BMI evaluation of the respondents was found statistically significantly dependent on gender (0.014), age (p = 0.000) and nationality of the respondents (p = 0.000).