March 2025
Importance of CV risk-factor screening in young First Nations people highlighted
By Melanie Hinze
The authors of research published in the Medical Journal of Australia have found that hypertension and prehypertension were ‘alarmingly frequent’ among young Indigenous Australians from regional, remote and urban communities.
Lead author, Professor Garry Jennings, AO, who is Chief Medical Advisor at the National Heart Foundation and researcher and clinician at The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, said, ‘Major CV events are often seen at a young age in First Nations people,’ adding that ‘it makes sense to look for major CV risk factors, including hypertension, earlier in adolescents and young adults.’
He noted that we presently recommend screening CV risk factors from age 18 years in First Nations people.
The prospective cohort survey study included 1244 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 10 to 24 years living in regional, remote and urban communities in Central Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales, who were recruited between March 2018 and March 2020.
Complete data were available for 771 participants, who had a mean age of 15.4 years and 56.8% were female.
The authors found that blood pressure (BP) was within the normal range for 69% of participants; however, it exceeded the threshold for prehypertension in 11.8% of participants and for hypertension in 19.2%.
Overall, 36.8% of participants aged 20 to 24 years had hypertension. The risk of prehypertension was four times as high for male participants as for female participants, and the risk of hypertension twice as high. The risks for prehypertension and hypertension were two to four times as high for participants aged 16 to 24 years as for those aged 10 to 15 years.
The risk of hypertension was three times as high for young people with obesity as for those with body mass index (BMI) values within the normal range. Mean systolic BP increased by 0.42 mmHg and diastolic BP increased by 0.46 mmHg per 1.0kg/m2 increase in BMI.
‘This study is important as there is a paucity of population level data on hypertension and other CV risk factors in young First Nations people,’ Professor Jennings said. ‘These are needed to provide a better basis for risk prediction in this group.’
The authors stated that community-level, culturally safe approaches were needed to avoid the early onset of CV risks, including elevated BP.