{"doi":"10.1089/jwh.2021.0125","title":"Prevalence of Hirsutism Among Reproductive—Aged African American Women","abstract":"Background: Hirsutism is the most common clinical symptom of hyperandrogenism, but racial and ethnic-specific thresholds have not been established. Our objective was to characterize hirsutism using self-report of hair growth in a large sample of African American women. Materials and Methods: The Study of Environment, Lifestyle, and Fibroids is a prospective community-based cohort study of African American women (23–34 at recruitment). A total of 1568 participants received the modified Ferriman–Gallwey (mFG) pictorial assessment and were asked if they were ever bothered by excess hair. We estimated the prevalence of hirsutism (mFG score ≥8) and associations of acne, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and menstrual cycle characteristics with hirsutism. We also explored hirsutism defined by the 95th percentile of scores in our cohort (mFG = 11) and a newly recommended criterion, mFG = 4. Results: We could determine hirsutism status in 1556 women. Thirty-seven percent reported being bothered by excess hair, and 10% met the mFG criterion for hirsutism. History of severe facial acne was positively associated with hirsutism (prevalence ratio: 1.90; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.30–2.76), as was physician-diagnosed PCOS (2.22, 95% CI: 1.30–3.81). Women with irregular menstrual cycles were also more likely to report hirsutism (1.78, 95% CI: 1.00–3.18). Results were similar using mFG ≥11 and attenuated using mFG ≥4. Conclusions: Hirsutism prevalence was 10% in this community sample of African American women and was associated with PCOS, severe acne, and irregular menstrual cycles suggesting this represented hirsutism caused by hyperandrogenism. Ethnically diverse, population-based studies assessing the association between mFG score and androgen levels are needed to better understand the hirsutism threshold as a clinical marker of hyperandrogenism.","journal":"Journal of Women s Health","year":2021,"id":189391,"datarank":0.41588830833596724,"base_score":2.772588722239781,"endowment":2.772588722239781,"self_citation_contribution":0.41588830833596724,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.41588830833596724,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":15,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.6369,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":109741,"name":"Erica E. Marsh","orcid":"0000-0003-1331-6525","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":104602,"name":"Janet E. Hall","orcid":"0000-0003-4644-3061","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294195,"name":"Donna D. Baird","orcid":"0000-0002-5544-2653","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431769,"name":"Helen B. Chin","orcid":"0000-0001-5090-6909","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":38,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:49:18.604374Z","pmid":"34520248","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}