Prevalence of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Men and Women Referred to Health Centers in the Four Cities of the Ira-pen Pilot Program, 2016-2017

The World Health Organization Package of Essential Noncommunicable Disease Interventions (WHO-PEN) enables the prevention, early detection, and management of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer. Ira-PEN is the adapted WHO-PEN program for the Iranian population, which started in 2015 as a pilot program in four cities (Naghadeh, Maragheh, Shahreza, and Baft). Then, it was implemented throughout the country. We aimed to investigate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in men and women referred to the health centers.

This study used data for people over 30 years old in the pilot areas in 2016 and 2017. The 10-year cardiovascular risk was determined with SIB software, as an integrated health information system, using the WHO/ISH risk chart. Individuals were classified into four risk categories: low (<10%), medium (10-20%), relatively high (20-30%), and high (>30%).

Among 160,223 subjects (58.1% female), the prevalence (95%CI) of diabetes in men and women was 8.5% (8.3-8.8) and 12.9% (12.7-13.1), respectively, and about one-third of diabetes cases were unknown. The prevalence of hypertension in men and women was 15.6 (15.3-15.9) and 23.2 (22.9-23.5), respectively. The unknown hypertension cases included 40% and 20% of men and women, respectively. Around 9% of men and 15.7% of women had hypercholesterolemia. More than 4% of men and around 5% of women had a risk of ≥10%.

Women are referred to the health centers more than men, and it seems that high-risk women refer to these centers for their diseases. Considering the high risk of morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular diseases in men, we recommend encouraging and following men to control their risk factors.