There are more than 65 million Hispanic and Latino people living in the U.S. – the second-largest racial or ethnic minority population in the country. Yet when it comes to Latino cardiovascular health, less may be understood about this population than any other.

Researchers say the reasons for this are complex, but two stand out: While often lumped together, people of Hispanic origin are not actually one group, but many. And for decades, nobody studied them.

In fact, until the 1980s, nobody even counted them – or collected comprehensive data about their health. Half a century later, many questions remain unanswered.

"For years, all we had was anecdotal evidence about health trends," said Dr. Lindsay Fernández-Rhodes, an associate professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State College of Health and Human Development in University Park, Pennsylvania. "Before you have the data to measure something, it may appear that it doesn't exist."

Defining the Population: Hispanic or Latino Cardiovascular Health?

Many people and entities, including the federal government, lump people of Hispanic and Latino origin together, but the two terms have different meanings.

Hispanic refers to people with ancestry from a country where Spanish is the primary language spoken, including Spain or any of the countries it colonized. Latino refers to people with origins anywhere in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Census Bureau uses the two terms to cover anyone whose family has origins in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South or Central America or places from any "other Spanish culture or origin." People of Hispanic and Latino origins may be of any race.

This covers a broad range of cultures, geographic origins, languages, nutritional preferences and socioeconomic statuses, with differences in how people access the health care system. And all of these factors can affect Latino cardiovascular health, said Dr. Fátima Rodríguez, an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

"Studying all of these people together does not make sense," she said, regarding Hispanic and Latino cardiovascular health. "We're starting to recognize this is a highly diverse group of people, and the heterogeneity and diversity within the Hispanic population make it impossible to generalize to all of these groups. We need to consider how social determinants of health affect each group individually."

Read the full article about Latino cardiovascular health by Laura Williamson at American Heart Association.