PSU Magazine Fall 2003

Asian immigrants seeing rising blood pressure The longer Asian immigrams live in North America, the more likely they are to have high blood pressure, according to a new study by researchers al Portland State's School of Community Health. Previous studies have shown that immigrants to Western countries have higher rates of heart disease and heart risk factors than their peers who do not emigrate. This study follows hypertension in Asian immigrants and shows its prevalence is closely linked to a Limeline of cultural adaptation. Asian immigrants who lived in Canada for four years or less showed hypertension rates below three per– cent. Those who lived in Western countries for five to nine years were reported to have a seven percent prevalence of hypertension and this rate grew to 13 percent for immigrants here for more than 10 years. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, included data on nearly 2,000 Asian immigrants surveyed as part of the 1996-1997 Canadian National Population Health Survey. "Differences in hypertension may be a result of changes in traditional lifestyles and dietary practices, includ– ing meal patterns and food choices," says lead researcher Mark Kaplan, associate professor of community health. The study also showed that risk of hypertension doubled among over– weight or psychologically distressed immigrants, compared Lo their peers. These factors, as well as age, sex, edu– cation status, smoking and drinking status, physical activity, health status, and access to health care were con– trolled in determining the effects of duration of residence on hypertension. One weakness of the study is that the hypertension rates are based on survey respondents' answers to a ques– tion about whether they had been diagnosed with the condition, rather than actually taking blood pressure measurements, says Kaplan. He adds that the results should be interpreted with caution. - - -- _... ,. ~ Oregon's high-tech roots are imaginatively rendered in a new poster created from research by a Portland State doctoral student. Family tree becomes family solar system In a new poster of Oregon's Silicon Forest, parent companies look like suns and their spin-off companies are orbiting planets. This silicon universe was created from research by student Heike Mayer. A doctoral candidate in urban stud– ies, Mayer is writing her dissertation on the evolution of the Silicon Forest. As she interviewed high-tech leaders she noticed posters of the local indus– try's family tree in many of their conference rooms. Several posters, the latest created in 1997, were produced by KVO Public Relations, a planet of Tektronix. KVO, now owned by Fleishman-Hillard, is helping Mayer promote her version. Design of the poster was a project of Prof. Liz Charman's undergraduate graphic design class. An expert jury of artists and high-tech entrepreneurs picked senior Kayoko Teramoto's design. The poster traces Oregon's high– tech roots back to the 1940s and fea– tures 370 companies. The most prominent are Tektronix and Intel. During Mayer's research she posed the question: How did the Silicon Forest develop without a world-class research institute, such as Stanford or MIT7 She found that Tektronix and Intel filled this gap by functioning as surrogate universities. Both companies attracted and trained a qualified labor pool and conducted cutting-edge research and development. More importantly, the two companies served as incubators for many Silicon Forest startups, which went on Lo spawn planets of their own. Oregon's high-tech entrepreneur– ship peaked in the first half of the 1980s and again in the second half of the 1990s, paralleling local venture capital investment patterns, says Mayer. She speculates that the avail– ability of venture capital will be critical for new business ventures in the future, as will a larger pool of univer– sity-trained engineers and computer science graduates. The 27-by 39-inch poster is on sale for $15 and may be purchased at the Web site www.oefstore.org. A portion of the proceeds will go toward further PSU research of the Silicon Forest. FALL 2002 PSU MAGAZINE 3