فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

BACKGROUND: Ethnic minorities are underrepresented in health sciences programs in variousnations. Furthermore, there is no known research studying the occurrence of physical inactivity (PI)and insufficient sleep (IS), and their effects on academic achievement (AA) in ethnic minoritystudents (EMS) in higher education.OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to explore the occurrence of PI and IS, and theirindependent and mixed effects on AA in EMS of a dental school.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty EMS and sixty non‑EMSs were matched (1:2) in thiscase–control study. It was utilized as an administrative dataset that stores register related to thestudents. Moreover, the grade point average was considered an indicator of AA. Logistic regressionsmodels were run, expressed in odds ratios, complemented by confidence intervals (CIs) of 95%.RESULTS: A total of 73% and 60% EMS were PI and slept insufficiently, respectively. The groupspresented statistically significant differences (P < 0.0001) in physical activity, sleep, and AA, withinferior values for EMS. All unadjusted models showed that PS, IS, and low AA were stronglyassociated with EMS, demonstrating their independent effect. After controlling for PI and IS, themultivariate model for AA and EMS increased odds by 6.5 times (95%CI: 1.8–23;), indicatingthat EMS is strongly associated with low AA. Besides, PI and IS were also statistically significanthigher (<0.0001) in the model, demonstrating their mixed effect.CONCLUSIONS: This study found a higher occurrence of PI and IS in EMS. Besides, independentand mixed effects of these variables on low AA in EMS were very significant.