Archives of Public Health最新文献

{"title":"Occupational injury patterns in a hospital-based cross-sectional study in Türkiye: sectoral characteristics, injury profiles, and determinants of multiple injuries (2019-2023).","authors":"Halit Canberk Aydogan, Zeynep Unat Öztürk, Hacer Yaşar Teke","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02121-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-026-02121-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Occupational accidents remain a major public health and economic burden, particularly in middle-income countries. While healthcare workers and high-energy industrial sectors are often examined separately, hospital-based injury data derived from forensic medical records provide a structured opportunity to compare sector-specific injury patterns within a unified analytical framework.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This retrospective hospital-based cross-sectional study included all occupational injury cases presenting to a tertiary emergency department and systematically documented through forensic medical records between 2019 and 2023 (n = 402). Sociodemographic characteristics, sector, accident mechanism, injury location, and injury count were analysed. Associations were assessed using chi square tests and Cramérs V. Independent predictors of multiple injuries were examined using binary logistic regression, and sector- and mechanism-specific within-sample relative risks were calculated.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The study population was predominantly male (66.9%) and young (45.5% aged 18-29 years). Construction, healthcare, and logistics were the most represented sectors. Physical trauma accounted for 95.3% of cases, while infectious exposure risk was identified in 21.4%, mainly from needlestick injuries and body-fluid splashes in healthcare. Multiple injuries occurred in 35.8% of cases and were disproportionately concentrated in high-energy sectors, including electrical-mechanical work (OR = 44.43; 95% CI = 3.72-531.12), manufacturing (OR = 12.82; 95% CI = 2.91-56.50), construction (OR = 4.64; 95% CI = 1.58-13.62), and logistics. Traffic incidents and falls were the strongest contributors to multi-region trauma. Upper-extremity injuries, particularly hand and finger trauma, predominated in healthcare workers, mainly nurses and healthcare technicians, and were more frequent among females.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Among workers presenting to a single tertiary hospital, injury patterns differed by sector, with infectious exposure predominating in healthcare and high-energy mechanisms in industrial sectors. These within-sample patterns identify potential targets for sector-specific prevention; however, without workforce denominators, they do not establish which sectors or age groups carry the highest injury risk, and broader prioritization requires population-level evidence.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149229124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A systematic workflow for utilizing and evaluating large language models in public health policy framing analysis.","authors":"Johanna Wenderoth, Peter von Philipsborn, Anna Leibinger, Philipp Cimiano","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02089-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-026-02089-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>For public health policy research, it is crucial to monitor policy debates to inform evidence-based policymaking. One popular method is to analyze the news for salient frames used to argue for or against a controversial topic. However, this method is time and resource-intensive since domain experts need to manually analyze relevant articles to identify frames. This study presents an approach for using large language models (LLMs) to extract frames and to systematically evaluate results.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Building on the results of a framing analysis of the German media debate about a tax on animal-based foods, we developed a systematic workflow to utilize LLMs to extract all instances of the 10 most frequent manually coded negative frames from 46 news articles. With one prompt per article in a few-shot setting we generated a list of quote/frame pairs. We then evaluated results against human-coded ones and calculated precision, recall, and F1-score.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>GPT-5 achieved 79.8% precision and 79.8% recall, identifying 75.2% of manually coded frames. Extracted quotes generally aligned with human-extracted text sections. Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview yielded higher precision but lower recall, resulting in a comparable F1-score (79.0% vs. 79.8% with GPT-5). These findings suggest the approach is generalizable across different frontier models.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>This study introduces a workflow for LLM-assisted frame extraction and transparent evaluation against an expert reference standard. Integrating this approach into public health policy coding can save resources and accelerate analysis. Ultimately, this could increase the representativeness and timeliness of data, enhancing our understanding of ongoing public health policy debates.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149225256","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What a highly monitored chikungunya epidemic reveals about preparedness for Europe and beyond.","authors":"Emilie Mosnier, Patrick Gérardin, Eric D'Ortenzio, Armelle Pasquet, Xavier Deparis, Yazdan Yazdanpanah","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02119-3","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02119-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The 2024-25 chikungunya epidemic in Reunion Island illustrates the challenge of translating early warning into timely public-health action during fast-moving arboviral outbreaks. Despite advanced surveillance, the epidemic accelerated rapidly and placed substantial pressure on primary care. These challenges, together with the complexity of emergency vaccine deployment, highlight the need for anticipatory, integrated preparedness strategies combining surveillance, vaccination, vector control and research.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13673808/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149208052","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Has the COVID-19 pandemic altered social inequalities in child development? A time trend analysis of developmental delays in preschool children by parental education.","authors":"Timo-Kolja Pförtner, Thomas Hennemann, Monika Gube, Frank J Elgar","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02111-x","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02111-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Child development may have deteriorated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with children from vulnerable backgrounds potentially facing the greatest risks. This study examined time trends in developmental delays among preschool children and whether inequalities in these delays by parental education changed with the onset of the pandemic.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Analyses used mandatory School Entry Examinations (SEE) in the Aachen region, Germany, covering ten cohorts (2015-2024) and restricted to children identified as being at risk for developmental delays (n = 15,299). The outcome was the number of delayed domains among six assessed. A segmented (interrupted time series) Poisson regression estimated the pre-pandemic trend, the level shift at the break between the 2020 and 2021 cohorts, and the subsequent change in trend, with inequalities by parental education expressed on both the relative and absolute scale. Multiple imputation and inverse probability weighting were applied.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Children of less-educated parents showed significantly more delays in every cohort. Delays increased significantly before the pandemic at a comparable rate in all educational groups. Delays rose abruptly in the 2021 cohort in all groups and declined thereafter, remaining elevated. Between the two periods, relative inequality narrowed significantly because delays increased proportionally more among children with moderate and high parental education, whereas absolute inequality was unchanged.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Children from families with lower educational attainment continued to experience a consistently higher burden of developmental delays. The first cohort assessed after the onset of the pandemic showed an abrupt, population-wide increase, which reduced inequality on a relative scale while leaving the absolute gap between educational groups unchanged. Public health strategies must address both persistent structural disparities and the broad vulnerabilities revealed by global crises.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13670839/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149197029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Study protocol for a quasi-experimental evaluation of the whole school approach FREI DAY.","authors":"Dominik Röding, Ricarda Brender, Sibel Ünlü-Reske, Anna Brager, Alicia Strauß, Jacqueline Kittel, Maike Stolz, Christian Krauth, Christiane Meyer, Ulla Walter","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02088-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02088-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The Sustainable Development Goals combine health, social justice, sustainability, and environmental protection. Schools offer a suitable setting for linking these goals and incorporating them into the development of children and youth. FREI DAY is a whole-school approach in German-speaking countries and at German schools abroad. It is designed as a curriculum-anchored learning format in which students work on self-chosen projects related to the Sustainable Development Goals. The approach aims to improve lifestyles and living conditions in both health and environmental sustainability, and to build schools' capacity to transform into healthy and sustainable organisations. FREI DAY is theory-based and aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This study examines the effectiveness of FREI DAY and the conditions necessary for its success, providing recommendations for its implementation and further development.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study is designed as a natural experiment with a sequential design. Over a period of three years, at least 60 secondary schools, including vocational schools, and 30 primary schools will be surveyed during three survey periods. The schools themselves decide whether and when to implement the eight-phase FREI DAY intervention. Schools will be classified as being in the intervention period once they moved from phase 3 (prepare FREI DAY pilot implementation) to phase 4 (implement FREI DAY pilot). Schools that have not yet reached phase 4 or discontinue will be classified as being in the control period. This means that schools can switch from the control condition to the intervention condition and vice versa during the study period. In each survey year, at least 20 students per school will be surveyed, i.e., around 1,200 students per wave. In addition, five school key informants per school will be surveyed annually, making 300 per wave (open cohort design). At intervention schools, at least three members of the school board per wave will also be surveyed. Changes in the results will be evaluated using hierarchical linear models.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This is the first study to evaluate the effectiveness of FREI DAY. We expect FREI DAY to improve students' well-being, life skills, environmental awareness and environmental responsibility. In addition, it is expected to strengthen the transformative capacity of schools, create a new culture of learning and sustainability, and strengthen collective resilience.</p><p><strong>Trial registration: </strong>This study was registered in the German Clinical Trials Register: DRKS00036310 on August 07, 2025.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13670517/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149185209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Somalia is battling concurrent outbreaks of cholera, measles, and diphtheria driven by severe drought and displacement.","authors":"Ayuub Ahmed Osman, Maryan Ali Adam, Ilyas Abdullahi Khalif","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02078-9","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02078-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Somalia is experiencing concurrent cholera, measles, and diphtheria outbreaks driven by climate change, conflict, displacement, malnutrition, inadequate water and sanitation, and fragile health systems. This letter argues that these overlapping epidemics should be recognized as a syndemic rather than independent outbreaks because they share common structural determinants that amplify transmission and mortality. We advocate for integrated surveillance, combined vaccination strategies, strengthened laboratory capacity, nutrition support, climate-informed early warning systems, resilient primary healthcare, and sustained financing to improve outbreak preparedness and response in Somalia and similar fragile settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13617885/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149076276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is educational expansion beneficial for health? A counterfactual mediation analysis of its impact on trends of daily activity limitations among different age groups in Germany.","authors":"Batoul Safieddine, Johannes Beller, Stefanie Sperlich","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02051-6","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02051-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Education has been a well-established indicator of health. Against the background of educational expansion, little is known on how the temporal rise in educational attainment is affecting health trends. This study mainly examines the mediation effect of educational expansion on the trends of limitations in daily activity as measured by the global activity limitation indicator (GALI).</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>The study utilized data from the German Health Update survey (GEDA) using five waves between 2008 and 2024. Predicted probabilities and trends of (severe) limitation in daily activities were estimated using logistic regression analyses. Educational inequalities in the rates of limitation in daily activities in the five waves as well as their development over time were examined using the slope and relative indices of inequalities (SII, RII). Causal mediation analyses were applied to examine how educational expansion influenced the temporal development of (severe) limitations. All analyses were stratified by gender and three age groups.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The results reveal significant disparities in severe limitations in daily activities, particularly widening among the middle-aged group. The findings show divergent trends in limitation across age groups: older individuals have experienced considerable improvements, while younger individuals have experienced an increase in severe limitations over time. In both cases, educational expansion was found to have a positive mediating effect on the temporal development of (severe) limitations, reducing the exacerbation in younger individuals and contributing to the improvement in older individuals.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Educational expansion appears to have a positive influence on health trends, which reinforces the need for continued educational reforms. More focus is needed on younger individuals to explore factors behind their declining health. Additionally, addressing widening educational inequalities, particularly among middle-aged adults, is crucial for narrowing the gap between educational groups. Social challenges and the digital divide could be important contextual factors to address this development.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13505053/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148820034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Implementation science in care for older adults across healthcare settings: a scoping review.","authors":"Ann Dadich, Ramyaa Sivakanthan, Diana Karamacoska, Liam Gwyther, Aryam Alshehri, Genevieve Steiner-Lim","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02034-7","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02034-7","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Background: &lt;/strong&gt;Translating evidence into the routine care of older adults remains challenging. This scoping review mapped how implementation science theories, models, and frameworks (TMFs) were selected and used in research on the care of older adults across healthcare settings.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Methods: &lt;/strong&gt;Following JBI guidance and PRISMA-ScR, AgeLine, CINAHL, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Emcare, and MEDLINE were searched for research involving older people (non‑Indigenous ≥ 65 years; Indigenous ≥ 50 years) that used implementation science and a TMF across healthcare settings that cared for older adults. Two reviewers independently screened and extracted data; characteristics and TMF use were summarised, descriptively, and content analysis was conducted to summarise rationales, applications, and contextual influences.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Results: &lt;/strong&gt;From 12,767 records, 108 publications (2000-2023) were included. Studies were conducted mainly in the United States of America (29.8%) and Canada (15.8%) and were most often hospital-based (36.1%); few focused on community (3.7%) or home settings (3.7%). Qualitative designs were most common (44.4%). The most frequently applied individual TMFs were the consolidated framework for implementation research (CFIR), and the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. These were followed by the theoretical domains framework (TDF), the promoting action on research implementation in health services (PARIHS) framework, and the normalisation process theory. Most of the publications reported on a standalone approach (86.1%). Most of the TMFs were not specific to the care of older adults, but were approaches applied across health and service contexts, with the normalisation process theory, the RE-AIM framework, and the theory of diffusion frequently applied in aged care facilities. Fewer than half of the publications reported the benefits (40.7%), limitations (13.9%), enablers (12.0%), or hindrances (22.2%) associated with the selected TMF. Twenty‑eight TMFs were absent.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusions: &lt;/strong&gt;Implementation science in the care of older adults relies on broad, transferable determinant and evaluation frameworks (predominantly CFIR and RE-AIM framework), while largely neglecting staged process models that guide active translation. Research remains concentrated in hospital settings and Western nations, creating a significant structural mismatch with modern healthcare trajectories that emphasise home- and community-based care. Furthermore, current applications prioritise professional and organisational processes over the relational realities of care, routinely failing to integrate the perspectives of minoritised populations, families, and informal carers. To mature, the field must pivot towards decentralised settings, integrate longitudinal sustainability metrics, and actively position older adults and carers as implementation leaders.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Regist","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13536825/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148875998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Exploring the influence of long COVID upon self-identity: a systematic literature review.","authors":"Helena J Holmes-McCoid, Fiona E Lecky","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02017-8","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02017-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Long COVID (LC) is understood to be a multisystemic illness involving symptoms of an enduring nature. As underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of LC become better understood, attention has turned towards the psychological aspects of LC lived experience. Comparable conditions, such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), are known to significantly impact self-identity. However, no prior review has explored this topic in the LC population. This review sought to offer an original and exploratory narrative of LC patients' experiences connected to self-identity.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A systematic literature review using a Narrative Synthesis approach. Twenty-one qualitative studies (including 613 participants), published between January 2021-March 2025, exploring the influence of LC upon perceptions of self-identity were reviewed. Narrative Synthesis (NS) and PRISMA guidelines were followed.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Four main themes emerged: \"Grief and Loss of the Familiar Self\", \"Reflections of Self, Mirrored by Others\", \"Threats to Identity\", and \"Repairing Fractured Identity\".</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>For many, LC ruptures self-narratives that contribute to a stable and continuous sense of self across time. This can bring forth a strong grieving response to perceived losses and the unfamiliarity of self. Despite this, narratives of post-traumatic growth (PTG) were realised. Current guidance lacks direction for psychological interventions targeting LC-related distress. Acknowledgement of identity-based challenges must also be reflected in future guidance, with clear recommendations for clinical practice. Qualitative longitudinal exploration of LC's influence upon self-identity should be prioritised. Similarly, the acceptability and feasibility of interventions targeting identity-transformation work require further investigation.</p><p><strong>Trial registration: </strong>PROSPERO ID: CRD420251008410.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13501567/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148814541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Age- and sex-specific predictive performance of obesity indices for hypertension in the Persian (Shahedieh) cohort study.","authors":"Mohammad Hashem Khademi Kolah Loui, Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabaei, Sara Jambarsang, Seyedeh Mahideh Namayandeh, Reyhane Sefidkar","doi":"10.1186/s13690-026-02038-3","DOIUrl":"10.1186/s13690-026-02038-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The rising global prevalence of obesity and its associated negative health outcomes impose a substantial burden on healthcare systems. This study aimed to investigate the predictive power of obesity-related indices for hypertension (HTN) in an Iranian population.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This prospective study included 7793 individuals aged 35-70 years, without HTN, who were enrolled in the Shahedieh cohort study in 2016. During the 4-year follow-up period, HTN status was determined via annual telephone interviews. A conditional time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was applied to estimate the predictive power of obesity-related indices, including Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), wrist circumference and Hip circumference, Waist- To- Height Ratio (WHtR), and Waist-to-hip Ratio (WHR) at different ages and separately for each sex.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>BMI predicted HTN well in middle-aged and older men, whereas it demonstrated acceptable predictive power in women aged under 60 years. Hip circumference showed acceptable predictive performance for men from middle age onwards, as well as for young and middle-aged women. Although WC could not predict HTN in young and older men, it showed approximately good predictive power for HTN in women across all age groups. WHR did not exhibit sufficient predictive power for HTN in men except at young ages, whereas it demonstrated good predictive power for women of all ages. WHtR and wrist circumference predicted HTN in men from middle age onwards. Similarly, HTN was well predicted in women of all ages except the elderly based on WHtR. The predictive power of wrist circumference fluctuated with age in women.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>BMI was the most reliable predictor for men, while for women, waist circumference and WHR performed best across most age groups, and these patterns seemed to hold up well despite the limited number of cases.</p>","PeriodicalId":48578,"journal":{"name":"Archives of Public Health","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.4,"publicationDate":"2026-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13617940/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149076269","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}