Development and Validation of a Risk Score Screening Tool to Identify People at Risk for Hypertension in Shanghai,...

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular disease epidemiology
• Public health surveillance
• Biostatistics

Background:

• Hypertension is a major public health concern globally and in Shanghai.
• Effective screening tools are needed for early identification of at-risk individuals.
• Existing screening methods may lack precision or accessibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a risk scoring tool for identifying individuals at high risk of hypertension in Shanghai.
• To create a simple, accessible method for early hypertension risk assessment.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 3147 respondents of the 2013 Shanghai Chronic Disease and Risk Factor Surveillance.
• Employed multivariable logistic regression to derive risk score coefficients.
• Used receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis to determine optimal cut-off points and assess performance.

Main Results:

• Key risk factors identified: age, family history of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, body mass index, and abdominal obesity.
• The developed screening tool demonstrated good performance with an area under the ROC curve of 0.817.
• An optimal cut-off value of 20 achieved a sensitivity of 83.4% and a specificity of 64.3%.

Conclusions:

• A simple and valid screening tool for hypertension risk has been successfully developed.
• Early detection through this tool can facilitate timely management of high-risk individuals.
• This approach may help delay hypertension progression and associated complications.