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Obesity in Refugees post-resettlement in a high-income country: a meta-analysis

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Abstract

Background

Refugees have a high prevalence of obesity post resettlement, but few studies have compared their risk of obesity to those of the host population. We systematically investigated the association between refugee status and obesity after resettlement in a high-income nation.

Methods

We searched PubMed, Embase, OpenGrey and bibliographies of retrieved articles, with no date, location, and language restrictions, for observational studies assessing obesity rates in resettled refugees compared to the host population.

Results

Nine studies were analyzed. We found no evidence of increased risk of obesity among refugees compared to the host population, with significant heterogeneity across studies. However, the risk of obesity among refugee men were significantly lower than the host population.

Discussion

The heterogeneity between studies calls for more high-quality research to examine the risk of obesity among refugees compared to the host population in high-income countries. This will enable results to be pooled to provide more decisive evidence about obesity trends among refugees post migration in a high-income nation.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Riley Samuelson at the University of Iowa Hardin Library for his support with the database search strategy.

Funding

We received no funding, grants, or other support to prepare this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa College of Public Health, 145 N. Riverside Dr., S400 CPHB, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA

    Niclette I. Kibibi & Precious de-Winton Cummings

  2. Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Isabelle Dena

  3. Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Chelsea D. Hicks

  4. Institute of Public Health Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China

    Wei Bao

  5. Division of Infectious Disease, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA

    Marin L. Schweizer

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  1. Niclette I. Kibibi
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  4. Chelsea D. Hicks
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Contributions

Niclette I. Kibibi conducted all database searches of relevant articles and had full access to all study data. Dr. Kibibi takes full responsibility for the integrity of the data and analysis. Concept, design, and full manuscript draft: Dr.Kibibi. Data abstraction and manuscript review and editing: Dr.Kibibi, Isabelle Dena, Precious de-Winton Cummings, Dr. Chelsea D. Hicks. Statistical support, supervision, and manuscript review: Dr. Marin Schweitzer. Critical review of manuscript for significant intellectual content: all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Niclette I. Kibibi.

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This study was exempt from an institutional ethics review since all studies meta-analyzed were already approved by their respective institutional review board/ethics review committee prior to publication.

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Kibibi, N.I., Dena, I., Cummings, P.dW. et al. Obesity in Refugees post-resettlement in a high-income country: a meta-analysis. J. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-023-01688-1

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