Background: Life's Essential 8 (LE8) is a new metric to define cardiovascular health. We aimed to describe LE8 among Hispanics/Latinos and its association with incident hypertension.
Methods and results: The HCHS/SOL (Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos) is a study of Hispanic/Latino adults aged 18 to 74 years from 4 US communities. At visit 1 (2008-2011), information on behavioral and clinical factors (diet, smoking status, physical activity, sleep duration, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, fasting glucose, and medication use) were measured and used to estimate an LE8 score (range, 0-100) for 14 772 participants. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure ≥130 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥80 mm Hg, or self-reported use of antihypertensive medications. Among the 5667 participants free from hypertension at visit 1, we used Poisson regression models to determine the multivariable adjusted association between LE8 and incident hypertension in 2014 to 2017. All analyses accounted for the complex survey design of the study. Mean population age was 41 years, and 21.6% (SE, 0.7) had high cardiovascular health (LE8 ≥80). Mean LE8 score (68.2; SE, 0.3) varied by Hispanic/Latino background (P<0.05), ranging from 72.6 (SE, 0.3) among Mexican Americans to 62.2 (SE, 0.4) among Puerto Ricans. Each 10-unit decrement in LE8 score was associated with a 22% increased risk of hypertension over ≈6 years (incident density ratio, 1.22 [95% CI, 1.16-1.29]).
Conclusions: Only 1 in 5 Hispanic/Latino adults had high cardiovascular health, and LE8 varied substantially across Hispanic/Latino background groups. Improvements in other components of cardiovascular health may result in a lower risk of developing hypertension.
Keywords: Hispanic/Latino health; Life's Essential 8; cardiovascular health; hypertension.