Prevalence, awareness, treatment, and risk factor control of high atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk in Guangzhou, China

Front Cardiovasc Med. 2023 Jul 14:10:1092058. doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2023.1092058. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Hui Liu^#¹, Weiquan Lin^#^{1

2}, Kexin Tu³, Qin Zhou^{1

2}, Chang Wang¹, Minying Sun^{1

2}, Yaohui Li¹, Xiangyi Liu¹, Guozhen Lin¹, Sidong Li⁴, Wei Bao⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Basic Public Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention of Guangzhou, Guangzhou, China.
² Institute of Public Health, Guangzhou Medical University & Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Institute of Public Health Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Identifying individuals at high risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) and implementing targeted prevention strategies might be the key to reducing the heavy disease burden in China. This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence, awareness, treatment, and risk factor control among individuals with high 10-year ASCVD risk in Guangzhou, China.

Methods: This study included 15,165 adults (aged 18 years and older) from 138 urban and rural communities in the 2018 survey of China Chronic Disease and Risk Factors Surveillance in Guangzhou. 10-year ASCVD risk was estimated using the risk assessment models recommended in the Chinese Guideline for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease 2017. The prevalence, awareness, treatment, and risk factor control of high ASCVD risk (defined as 10-year risk ≥10%) were examined.

Results: Among the study population, the weighted proportion of men was 51.9%, and the mean age was 41.27 ± 0.52 years. The overall standardized prevalence of high 10-year ASCVD risk was 13.8% (95% CI, 12.4%-15.3%). The awareness rates for hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia were 48.0% (95% CI, 42.8%-53.4%), 48.3% (95% CI, 43.0%-53.7%), and 17.9% (95% CI, 14.4%-22.1%) among those with corresponding risk factors. The proportions of drug use in prevention were relatively low in primary prevention, with the rates of using BP-lowering, glucose-lowering, lipid-lowering, and aspirin being 37.7% (95% CI, 32.8%-42.8%), 41.4% (95% CI, 35.8%-47.3%), 6.7% (95% CI, 4.5%-10.0%), and 1.0% (95% CI, 0.6%-1.8%), respectively. As for risk factor control, only 29.3% (95% CI, 25.7%-33.2%), 16.8% (95% CI, 15.0%-18.6%), and 36.0% (95% CI, 31.1%-41.2%) of individuals with high ASCVD risk had ideal levels of blood pressure, LDL-C, and body weight.

Conclusion: The estimated prevalence of 10-year high ASCVD risk was high in Guangzhou, while the rates of treatment and risk factor control in primary prevention were still far from optimal, especially for lipid management. These findings suggested that substantial improvement in ASCVD prevention is needed in this population.

Keywords: ASCVD risk assessment; Guangzhou; awareness; cardiovascular risk; prevalence; risk assessment & management; treatment.

© 2023 Liu, Lin, Tu, Zhou, Wang, Sun, Li, Liu, Lin, Li and Bao.

Grants and funding

This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (72104061); Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (202201010022); The Key Project of Medicine Discipline of Guangzhou (No. 2021-2023-12); Basic Research Project of Key Laboratory of Guangzhou (No. 202102100001).