Population attributable risk of overweight and obesity for high blood pressure in Chinese children

Abstract

Objective. Little is known about whether eliminating overweight and obesity could effectively reduce the prevalence of high blood pressure (HBP) in Chinese children. This study aimed to estimate the magnitude of contribution of overweight and obesity associated with HBP in Chinese children, and assess the theoretical HBP prevalence if overweight and obesity were eliminated. Methods. Data on 197,191 participants aged 7–17 years with complete records from the Chinese National Survey on Students’ Constitution and Health conducted in 2010 were included. The population attributable risk of overweight and obesity for HBP was calculated. Results. The prevalence of HBP was 6.8% and 5.8% for boys and girls, respectively. HBP in about 22.9% (95% CI 21.5, 24.2%) of boys and 14.7% (95% CI 13.5, 15.8%) of girls could be attributable to overweight and obesity. If both overweight and obesity were eliminated, the prevalence of HBP theoretically could be reduced to 5.2% in boys and 5.0% in girls. Similar results were found in different age and urban/rural area groups. Conclusion. Eliminating overweight and obesity could theoretically lead to a moderate reduction in the prevalence of HBP in Chinese children.

Key Words::

• Blood pressure
• children
• obesity
• risk assessment

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank W. K. Liao, W. H. Xing, X. Zhang and the members of CNSSCH for providing access to the survey data. We also appreciate the cooperation of all the students who participated in the survey.

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia [no. APP1045000] awarded to ZW, Research Special Fund for Public Welfare Industry of Health of China [no. 201202010] awarded to JM and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China [no. 20120001110016] awarded to JM.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.