National trends in cardiovascular health metrics among Iranian adults using results of three cross-sectional STEPwise approaches to surveillance surveys

To examine the trends of 7 cardiovascular health metrics (CVH metrics) incorporate of smoking, physical activity, diet, body mass index (BMI), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), total cholesterol (TC), and blood pressure (BP) level during three cross-sectional STEPwise approaches to surveillance (STEPS), 2007–2016, among Iranian adults. The study population consisted of 19,841 women and 17,243 men, aged 20–65 years. The CVH metrics were categorized as ‘ideal’, ‘intermediate’, and ‘poor’. The sex-stratified weighted prevalence rate of each CVH metrics was reported. The conditional probability of each poor versus combined intermediate and ideal metric was analyzed using logistic regression. In 2016 compared to 2007, the prevalence of poor BP level (20.4% vs. 23.7%), smoking (13.7% vs. 23.8%), TC ≥ 240 mg/dl (2.4% vs. 11.2%) and FPG < 100 mg/dl (75.6% vs. 82.3%) declined, whereas poor physical activity level (49.7% vs. 30%), poor healthy diet score (38.1% vs. 4.1%), BMI levels ≥ 25 kg/m(2) (62.8% vs. 57.8%) increased. Despite a high prevalence of obesity among women, it remained constant in women but showed an increasing trend in men; moreover, the trends of low physical activity and current smoking were better for women. Despite some improvement in CVH metrics, < 4% of Iranian adults meet ≥ 6 CVH metrics in 2016; this issue needs intervention at the public health level using a multi-component strategy.