Trends in prevalence of health and cardiovascular risk factors based on Life's Essential 8 among US adults, 2007–2020

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to determine trends in the prevalence of health factors and risk factors based on Life's Essential 8 (LE8) among US adults. Methods: The present study included 26,548 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2007–2008 to 2017–2020. Crude weighted prevalence and 95% CI values of individual risk and health factors based on LE8 were estimated by cycle, and their trends were assessed in logistic regression models. Results: From 2007–2008 to 2017–2020, the prevalence of lack of physical activity (27.2% to 22.5%), current smoking (21.2% to 15.9%), less sleep time (37.1% to 22.7%), and hyperlipidemia (55.8% to 50.8%) decreased, and obesity (33.9% to 43.3%) and hypertension (31.5% to 34.6%) increased, whereas unhealthy diet and diabetes remained stable. There were significant increases in the prevalence of sufficient physical activity (59.7% to 66.7%), never smoking (50.3% to 55.5%), enough sleep time (56.8% to 60.6%), and normal blood lipids (30.2% to 35.6%) and significant decreases in the prevalence of normal weight (30.8% to 25.7%), normal blood glucose (71.5% to 64.8%), and normal blood pressure (61.3% to 58.7%). Conclusions: This study found improvement in physical activity, smoking, sleep health, and blood lipids and worsening of weight, blood glucose, and blood pressure among US adults from 2007–2008 to 2017–2020.