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

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.