Exploring Self-Employment and Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Hispanic Women.

Objective: Examine the association between self-employment, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, and health outcomes among Hispanic women. Methods: This observational study was conducted with data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2003-2022) and a pooled cross-sectional study design to evaluate the association of self-employment with risk factors for CVD. The statistical models were weighted linear probability models that were adjusted for demographics, language, family structure, socioeconomic status, and health insurance. Results: Of the 165,609 working Hispanic women in the study, roughly 13% (20,946) were self-employed. Relative to working for wages or salary, self-employment was associated with a significant mean (95% confidence interval) decline in the predicted probability of reporting diabetes (-1.69% [-2.3%, -1.0%]), hypertension (-3.25% [-4.7%, -1.9%]), obesity (-5.92% [-7.5%, -4.7%]), binge drinking (-1.98% [-3.3%, -0.77%]), and poor health (-2.47% [-3.7%, -1.4%]) and an increase in the predicted probability of reporting exercise (8.33% [7.1%, 9.7%]). Conclusions: Self-employment was negatively associated with several risk factors for CVD, relative to those for women working for wages. Work structure may have important implications for CVD risk among Hispanic women.