Obesity prevalence has increased drastically over the last couple of
decades. Obesity increases an individual’s risk of health complications such as
cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and other chronic conditions. Obesity has
been related to an increased susceptibility to infection and complications from the
influenza virus. In the present study, the immune responses to the influenza
vaccine between races in obese women will be compared by determining the
percent increases in immunoglobulin G subtype levels from pre to post
vaccination. To accomplish this, serum was collected from study participants
and tested for antibody levels pre and post vaccination using an indirect enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay. For IgG1 and IgG3, average percent increases pre
to post vaccination displayed no difference between African American women
and Caucasian women. IgG2 was not present in detectable levels in the
population studied and was not able to be analyzed. For IgG4, the average
percent increase pre to post vaccination displayed a statistically significant
difference between African American women and Caucasian women. African
Americans had a significantly lower average percent increase in IgG4 pre to post
vaccination compared to Caucasians. This suggests that there may be lower
levels of IgG4 in African American women in general compared to Caucasian
women. Future studies should be conducted to further investigate these
relationships.Bachelor of Science in Public Healt
