Lifestyle Subgroups and its Relationship with the Incidence of Hypertension in the Population of Azar Cohort: A Latent Class Analysis.

Background: There is no study that simultaneously evaluates the relationship between lifestyle variables and the incidence of hypertension in the Iranian population. The aim of present study was to compare the incidence of hypertension across different lifestyle subgroups of the Azar cohort population identified via Latent Class Analysis. Methods: We used the data of 15,006 eligible participants across five follow-up periods. Seven observed variables were used to assess lifestyle behaviors as a latent variable. These indicators were smoking, substance abuse, alcohol consumption, secondhand smoke exposure, sleep quality, physical activity, and obesity. The analysis was performed in SAS 9.2 software. Results: Three-class and seven-class models were appropriate for females and males based on the indices for model selection and the interpretability of the model results, respectively. In females, 25.7%, 9% and 65.3% were at "low risk", "high risk" and "secondhand smoke exposure and poor sleep quality", respectively. In males, 13.3% and 3.6% were in the "smoker" and "high-risk" classes, respectively. In females and males (up to class 4), after adjusting for age and socioeconomic status, the prevalence and incidence of hypertension increased with the advancement of classes. Conclusion: Considering the characteristics of the identified classes and the occurrence of hypertension in each class, the main focus of lifestyle interventions can be placed on the most high-risk groups. Our findings suggest that poor physical activity, poor sleep quality, and obesity should be addressed as the main targets of lifestyle intervention strategies for preventing and controlling hypertension.