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

Niclette I Kibibi; Isabelle Dena; Precious de-Winton Cummings; Chelsea D Hicks; Wei Bao; Marin L Schweizer

doi:10.1007/s40615-023-01688-1

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

J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2023 Jul 19. doi: 10.1007/s40615-023-01688-1. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Niclette I Kibibi¹, Isabelle Dena², Precious de-Winton Cummings³, Chelsea D Hicks⁴, Wei Bao⁵, Marin L Schweizer⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa College of Public Health, 145 N. Riverside Dr., S400 CPHB, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA. niclette-kibibi@uiowa.edu.
² Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
³ Department of Epidemiology, University of Iowa College of Public Health, 145 N. Riverside Dr., S400 CPHB, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA.
⁴ Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁵ Institute of Public Health Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, Anhui, China.
⁶ Division of Infectious Disease, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA.

PMID: 37468741
DOI: 10.1007/s40615-023-01688-1

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.

Keywords: Developed countries; Obesity; Pediatric obesity; Refugees.

Publication types

Review