Vulnerability Assessment of Hypertension in the Communities of Guangdong, South of China

Research Article

J Fam Med. 2018; 5(3): 1144.

Vulnerability Assessment of Hypertension in the Communities of Guangdong, South of China

Zhou Z1*, Huang Z1, Chen B1, Zheng C2 and Chen W1

¹Shenzhen Futian Hospital for Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Disease, Shenzhen, People’s Republic of China

²Department of Public Health, Guangdong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, China

*Corresponding author: Zhiheng Zhou, Shenzhen Futian Hospital for Prevention and Treatment of Chronic Disease, 9 Xinsha Road, Futian, Shenzhen , Guangdong, 518048, People’s Republic of China

Received: June 02, 2018; Accepted: June 27, 2018; Published: July 04, 2018

Abstract

Background: Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease. However, there is few reports have applied vulnerability assessment technology for the study of community hypertension.

Conclusion: This study infers that the vulnerability of community hypertension in Guangdong Province was relatively large, thus, community health services should improve the management level of hypertension and including adopting a fully management of hypertension for the community to reduce the risk of hypertension. Keywords: Hypertension; Community; Vulnerability assessment We investigated community hypertension in Guangdong, south of China using vulnerability assessment technology.

Methods: Stratified random cluster sampling was used to collect data from a total of 65 communities in Guangdong Province. 15,832 residents aged over 18 participants responded to a questionnaire survey to collect information about of vulnerability of community hypertension from June to September in 2017.

Results: The total hypertension prevalence was 18.9%, while 18.7% of respondents had a family history of hypertension and 26.4% of respondents were overweight or obese. Social factors indicating access to healthcare were as follows: 12.6% of the residents paid medical costs at their own expense; the travel time to get health care was 14.7mins and the average housing area was 111.3m2; the demographic details over 60 years old was 12.1%. Multiple factor logistic regression analysis suggested that awareness of the prevention and treatment of hypertension (OR = 0.473) and health education initiative (OR = 0.628) were protective factors, while risk factors for hypertension were age (OR = 1.489), family history (OR = 1.278), overweight or obesity (OR = 1.366), smoking (OR = 2.318), alcohol consumption (OR = 1.989), salty diet (OR = 2.173) and daily sitting time (OR = 2.824). In addition the overall satisfaction rate with the community health services was 66.9%.

Conclusion: This study infers that the vulnerability of community hypertension in Guangdong Province was relatively large, thus, community health services should improve the management level of hypertension and including adopting a fully management of hypertension for the community to reduce the risk of hypertension. Keywords: Hypertension; Community; Vulnerability assessment

Introduction

Hypertension is the most common cardiovascular disease. A lot of research on the prevention and control of high blood pressure have been performed in developed countries, which has yielded highly desirable results on the improvement in hypertension awareness, treatment and control [1-3]. In recent years, the disease spectrum of Chinese residents has undergone profound changes; specifically, hypertension has shown a rising trend in both incidence and mortality [4,5].

Since 2008, the Chinese government has implemented community care programs in community health services and required the local community to use standardized management for patients with hypertension. Although the policy has helped in the standardization of care, there are still many weaknesses in the management of hypertension [6]. Currently, there have been a large number of reports related to epidemiological characteristics of community hypertension, the patient's knowledge, attitude, and practice, methods to control the disease and relative risk factors [7-9]. However, few reports have studied community hypertension using vulnerability assessment technology.

Vulnerability is a term related to risk that was first proposed by Timmerman [10] in 1981. Susceptibility, fragility and instability are words similar to vulnerability that have different meanings in different disciplines [11-14]. In public health, Daniel (2007) [15] defined “vulnerability” as the result of the aggregation of risk and the response capacity of the community, local government and emergency response organizations. Satu (2006) [16] defined it as “a function of susceptibility, resilience and environment ". Fan et al believed that, with regards to a threat to public health, public health vulnerability referred to the possibility for and extent of losses of population health resulting from changes in public health factors [17]. Vulnerability includes both susceptibility and resilience. A vulnerability assessment is also known as “risk assessment” or "disaster analysis", which are based on a series of techniques used to determine the unexpected events in individual communities and their possible impact on the community. The susceptibility to community-related issues can be determined through analysis of multiple factors, such as community infrastructure, economic status, and demographic composition of the community. Vulnerability assessment has been widely used in various fields, and is mainly concentrated in the environmental sciences, natural disasters, social security, power, water, computers and ecological areas [18-22]. Vulnerability has become an issue which must not be disregarded in particular for complex systems. However, there are few reports concerning vulnerability assessments of hypertension in a community.

Here, we applied vulnerability assessment technology to discuss the hypertension by assessing pathogenic vulnerability, social vulnerability, population vulnerability and vulnerability of the response in communities of Guangdong Province and to provide scientific basis to draft a community hypertension prevention strategy and decrease the prevalence of hypertension.

Subjects and Methods

Subjects

65 communities from Guangdong Province (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan and Zhongshan city), south of China were studied.

Methods

Stratified random cluster sampling was used to collect data from a total of 65 communities in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhongshan and Foshan City, Guangdong Province from June to September in 2017. Firstly, random sample of families was selected from using a stratified, secondly, questionnaire and physical examination was used to collect information for all family members aged over 18. Therefore, these residents were representative of the general population. The hypertension vulnerability information was collected from survey data.

A household questionnaire and physical examination was used to collect information of community residents aged over 18. More than 200 community residents were involved in each community survey and a total of 16,000 residents were investigated in this study, and 15,832 residents valid questionnaire were completed (participation rate was 98.95%, and the refusal rate was 1.05%). We used a standardized questionnaire to survey residents, which included general information, prevalence of hypertension, family history, hypertension-related knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. Medical staff in the community health service centers was trained as investigators to perform the survey. The survey assessed common risk factors for hypertension, including age, gender, family history of hypertension, overweight or obese, cultural conditions, awareness of the prevention and treatment of hypertension, Cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, salty diet, exercise, daily sitting time, regular measurement of blood pressure and health education initiative. Overweight was defined as BMI= 24kg/m2 according to the 2006 Guidelines on Preservation and Control Overweight and Obesity in Chinese Adults classification [23]. Cigarette smoking was defined as having one cigarette per day and keeping on smoking for at least 1 year [24]. Lack of exercise was defined as having physical exercise less than one time per week keeping on this status for at least 1 year. People who took more than 2 standard units of drink per day (women) or more than 3 per day (men) were defined as having an excessive alcohol intake. People who self-reported preferring daily foods that contained more salt than other members in the family or people around them were classified as having salty diet.

Physical examination included anthropometry and blood pressure measurement. Height was measured in centimeters using a wall-mounted measuring tape and weight was measured in kilogram’s using a digital scale (Jingzhun, Armamentarium Limited Company, Tianjin, China). Body mass index (BMI) was calculated as weight in kilogram’s divided by the height in meters squared (kg/m2).

Blood pressure was measured using calibrated desktop sphygmomanometers (Yuyue, Armamentarium Limited Company, Jiangsu, China) after the participants were seated for at least 5min, consistent with current recommendations [25]. Blood pressure was measured three times consecutively, with at least 1min between measurements, and the reported blood pressure was the average of these three measurements. A subject was considered to have hypertension if (i) SBP =140mmHg, and/or (ii) DBP =90mmHg and/or (iii) the subject was taking an antihypertensive drug [26]. Controlled hypertension was defined as pharmacological treatment of hypertension associated with an average SBP < 140mmHg and DBP < 90mmHg.

All research carried out was conducted with integrity and in line with generally accepted ethical principles, was in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration, and approved by Research Ethic Committee of Shenzhen Futian Hospital for prevention and treatment of Chronic Disease, We did the survey under the agreement of the residents. All the personal information of the residents was managed confidentially.

Statistical analysis

Epidata version 3.1 (Epidata Association, Odense, Denmark) was applied to establish a database for double-entries and was crossvalidated. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 16.0. Statistical inference of measurement data was subjected to a t-test or analysis of variance. The composition ratio or percentage was compared using Χ2 test and multi-factor analysis was performed using non-conditional logistic regression.

Results

General characteristics of study subjects

Among the 65 communities surveyed, 22 communities (33.8%) were in Guangzhou city, 12 communities (8.3%) were in Shenzhen City, 15 communities (23.1%) were in Zhongshan City, and 16 communities (24.6%) were in Foshan city. A total of 15,832 community residents were surveyed, of whom 6,500 were from Guangzhou, 2,404 from Shenzhen, 3,278 from Zhongshan and 3,650 from Foshan. Surveyed residents were aged 41.5 ± 23.5 years (male 52.6%, female 47.4%). Unmarried respondents accounted for 51.3%; the demographic details of married, divorced and widowed participants were 42.9%, 2.5% and 3.3%, respectively, as seen in Table 1.