Retrospective analysis of health parameters a demographically diverse chiropractic clinic: Implications for patient managment

Background: Chiropractic clinics in culturally diverse areas often encounter a broader spectrum of health concerns. However, there is evidence in the literature that culturally-based health trends, such as increased obesity in Hispanics exists. Given this relation, community health programs tend to target these at-risk populations. Census data indicates that our community is 48.2% Hispanic. We hypothesize that our clinic will mirror this distribution, and health parameters such as body mass index (BMI) will be greater in Hispanics when compared to the Caucasian cohort. To test our hypothesis, we conducted a retrospective data analysis of patient demographics and health parameters at our clinic. Methods: We collected the following data for each patient: age, gender, ethnicity, height, weight, BMI, resting pulse, blood pressure, medications, presenting complaint, number of treatments and status at the time of data collection. Comparative statistics (Student's t-test, non-paired, equal variances, p=0.05) were used to examine statistical relations between groups. Results: A total of 33 sets of data were reviewed. Of the 19 Caucasian patients, 37% were female, while of the 14 Hispanic patients, 64% were female. Overall, the Hispanic population was shorter and weighed less than Caucasian cohort (p<0.04). There were no differences between BMI of the two groups; however, the pooled BMI of the patients was 29.2±7.4. Conclusions: Patients presenting to our clinic were mostly overweight (or obese). Unexpectedly, there were no differences in BMI between Hispanic and Caucasian, indicating that a community clinic should characterize their patient population prior to initiating any targeted community health programs.