In a recent study published within the PLOS ONE Journal, researchers explored the prevalence of health risk aspects and their correlation with all-cause mortality.
Study: Is anyone truly healthy? Trends in health risk aspects prevalence and changes of their associations with all-cause mortality. Image Credit: gbeerredhot/Shutterstock.com
Background
Public health and research have commonly aimed to observe known risk aspects through surveillance. Cancer and heart problems (CVD) remain the highest mortality causes in the USA. Nonetheless, the incidence of CVD mortality has decreased through the years.
Social and lifestyle aspects have been linked to the danger of developing cancer and CVD. Yet, the potential changing correlation between risk aspects, mortality, and morbidity over time has received little attention.
Concerning the study
In the current study, researchers identified patterns within the occurrence of health risk aspects over time and analyzed whether their correlation with mortality has modified.
The study compared two nationally representative samples from 1988-1994 and 1999-2014 with a five-year mortality follow-up in a cross-sectional manner.
Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) III was used to acquire participant information, which was constantly collected from 1999 to 2014 to make sure a five-year mortality follow-up. The information was gathered through home interviews and health assessments conducted at Mobile Examination Centers (MEC).
Individuals aged 20 years or older were eligible for inclusion within the analytical sample. Risk aspects were categorized because the presence or absence of any of the danger aspects from these 4 categories:
- Lifestyle- high-fat weight loss plan, no physical activity, alcohol intake, current smoking;
- physiological- hyperglycemia, hypertension, dyslipidemia, heart problems, cancer, and lung problems;
- social or mental- low education, lack of medical insurance, food insecurity, low income, and reliance on mental health medication;
- physical- the usage of pain medication, arthritis, obesity, limitations in performing day by day activities.
Results
The team noted that 18 out of 19 health risk aspects amongst men and/or women reported changes in prevalence over time. In any respect time points, greater than 97% of people reported a minimum of certainly one of the 19 risk aspects, and there was no change within the prevalence of experiencing any risk factor over time.
The prevalence of self-reported ‘poor’ health decreased barely over the study period amongst men and ladies, with no difference between the sexes.
From 1988-1994 to 2011-2014, there was a rise within the occurrence of lifestyle, social/mental, and physical risk aspects. Nonetheless, the prevalence of physiological risk aspects decreased in the course of the same time.
Women were generally more likely than men to have physical and lifestyle risk aspects. In contrast, no sex-related differences existed for physiological, social/mental, or other health risk aspects. The prevalence of physical inactivity and excessive alcohol intake increased amongst individuals by way of lifestyle aspects.
Nonetheless, smoking decreased in each men and ladies while consuming a high-fat weight loss plan declined from 49% to 44% in men only.
Hypertension, high glucose, and cancer prevalence increased amongst physiological risk aspects, while high lipids decreased. The prevalence of CVD decreased between NHANES III and NHANES continuous 1999-2000 before rising and being generally more inferior in 2011-2014 than NHANES III amongst women.
Alternatively, the prevalence of lung disease didn’t change over time. Most individuals who didn’t have medical insurance experienced food insecurity and consumed mental health medications increased. At the identical time, there was a discount within the prevalence of people having lower than a highschool education.
The prevalence of physical risk aspects corresponding to pain medication use, arthritis, and obesity increased significantly over time for men and ladies. Nonetheless, there was a discount in ADL problems amongst adults aged over 60 years.
Throughout the five-year follow-up period, a complete of 1,319 deaths occurred. Individuals who didn’t possess any of the 19 risk aspects didn’t experience any fatalities. In NHANES continuous, the presence of any risk aspects was linked to a 30% decrease within the likelihood of five-year mortality in comparison with NHANES III.
Conclusion
The study revealed that changes in social programs, healthcare, and the built environment can have impacted the connection between traditional risk aspects and health/mortality.
The changes make it difficult to research trends over time and hence require careful interpretation of health trends in line with surveillance data. The researchers consider that future studies must concentrate on the evolving prevalence of conventional risk aspects and analyze how these aspects are linked to illness and death.