Abstract Body: Introduction:
Hispanic individuals are often grouped into a single ethnicity category despite representing a heterogeneous population. Prevalence of pre-pregnancy hypertension (HTN) nearly tripled among Hispanic individuals in the past decade. To guide public health interventions, we describe contemporary trends in pre-pregnancy HTN in individual Hispanic ethnic groups.
Methods:
This was a serial, cross-sectional analysis of maternal data from birth certificates in the Centers for Disease Control Natality Database. We included individuals aged 15-44 years who self-identified as Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black (NHB) or non-Hispanic White (NHW), and had available data on pre-pregnancy HTN from 2018-2022. We calculated the annual, age-standardized prevalence and average annual percent change (AAPC) in pre-pregnancy HTN per 100 live births by race and ethnicity, including within individual Hispanic ethnic groups.
Results:
Among 16,501,927 birthing people, prevalence of pre-pregnancy HTN was highest in the NHB group, followed by the NHW and Hispanic groups (FIGURE). Prevalence and trends in pre-pregnancy HTN varied significantly among Hispanic ethnic groups. In 2022, prevalence ranged from 1.5 ± 0.03 per 100 in the Central or South American group to 3.1 ± 0.07 per 100 and 3.0 ± 0.09 per 100 in the Puerto Rican and Dominican groups, respectively. The Dominican group had a significantly higher rate of increase (AAPC 10.6%± 0.1%/year) compared to NHB (5.4 ± 0.03%/year), NHW (9.9 ± 0.0%/year), and other Hispanic subgroups.
Conclusion:
From 2018 to 2022 among Hispanic individuals, prevalence of pre-pregnancy HTN was highest the in Puerto Rican group but increased most rapidly among the Dominican group. Aggregating Hispanic individuals masks clinically important variation in pre-pregnancy cardiovascular risk factors.