Essential hypertension (HTN) has a complex spectrum of pathophysiological determinants and current guidelines provide limited information on high-risk groups that should be targeted for its primary prevention. The objective of our research was to identify clusters of social and metabolic factors associated with prevalent HTN in men and women from a population-based survey in Romania. Of the 1477 participants in the main study, 798 with complete data were analyzed here. Using two-step cluster analysis, one high-risk cluster in women and two high and intermediate risk for prevalent HTN in men were identified. Older age, rural area, lower education, and higher burden of metabolic factors characterized clusters with higher risk, while intermediate risk in men was characterized by a more metabolically healthy phenotype in younger individuals. In logistic regression, men in Cluster 1 vs. those in Cluster 3 had an odds ratio (OR) of 9.6 (95%CI: 4.6; 20.0), p < 0.001 for prevalent HTN, while OR for Cluster 2 vs. Cluster 3 was 3.2 (95%CI: 1.4; 7.4), p = 0.005. In women, the OR for HTN was 10.2 (95%CI: 5.7; 18.5) if assigned to Cluster 2 vs. Cluster 1, p < 0.001. These results pointed out the subgroups and communities that the primary prevention of HTN should be prioritized in.
Keywords: hypertension; primary prevention; social determinants.