A cross-sectional study of the prevalence and risk factors for hypertension in rural Nepali women

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Rumana J Khan¹  Christine P Stewart¹ 

[1] Program in International and Community Nutrition, University of California, Davis, CA, USA;

关键词: Blood pressure;    Hypertension;    Cardiovascular risk;    Nepal;    Rural;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-13-55

 received in 2012-05-08, accepted in 2012-12-22,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe prevalence of hypertension is increasing in much of the South Asian region, including Nepal. This paper reports the prevalence and risk factors of hypertension and pre-hypertension among adult women in a rural community of Nepal.MethodsCross-sectional data on socioeconomic status (SES), lifestyle factors and blood pressure (BP) were collected from a cohort of 15,934 women in rural Nepal in 2006–08. Among a subsample (n = 1679), anthropometry and biomarkers of cardiovascular risk were measured.ResultsThe mean age of women was 34.2 years (range 16.4-71.2 years). More than three percent (3.3%) had hypertension and 14.4% had pre-hypertension. In an adjusted analysis, lower SES, especially lower household farm assets and storage of food for long term consumption, was associated with increased odds of hypertension (OR = 1.14 for mid-level SES and OR = 1.40 for low SES; p for trend < 0.01). Smoking, alcohol use and not working outside the home were also associated with higher risk. In a subsample, both systolic BP (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) were positively associated with high triglycerides (SBP β = 4.1 mm Hg; DBP β =3.6 mm Hg), high HbA1c (SBP β = 14.0; DBP β = 9.2), raised fasting glucose (SBP β = 10.0; DBP β = 6.9), high BMI (SBP β = 6.7; DBP β = 5.1) and high waist circumference (SBP β = 6.2; DBP β = 5.3) after adjusting for potential confounders (p for all <0.01).ConclusionsAlthough the prevalence of hypertension was low in this cohort, it was more prevalent among the poorer women and was strongly associated with other cardiovascular risks. These associations at a relatively young age may confer greater risk for cardiovascular disease among women in later life, indicating the need for interventions to reduce the progression from pre-hypertension to hypertension.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Khan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.