The Health status of Japanese people living in the UK
Studies have shown that Japanese migrants to the US and Brazil have higherrate of diabetes than native Japanese, but little is known about migrants to the UK. Weinvestigate the health status of Japanese migrants to the UK. We utilised the modified validatedBehavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System State Questionnaire 2004. A UK computeriseddirectory was searched for common Japanese names and 2192 anonymised postalquestionnaires were dispatched. Data were compared to a nationwide survey of diabetes inJapan, the National Health and Nutrition Survey and the Health Survey for England. 589 replieswere received and showed that the rates of obesity and overweight were lower than that of thenative UK population. The prevalence of self-reported doctor-diagnosed diabetes, hypertension,hyperlipidaemia, heart-attack and stroke were 3.6%, 13.1%, 19.5%, 0.7% and 0.8% respectively.It appears that Japanese migrants adopt a lifestyle similar to the UK population, diverging fromthat of native Japanese. Rates of obesity are lower than the UK native population and smokingrates are lower than native Japanese. In conclusion, the migratory disease burden seen inJapanese migrants to the US and Brazil was not apparent in this sample population in the UK. (Accepted on August 27, 2009)
