Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease in People with Mobility Disabilities

Abstract

The study aimedto compare the proportion of people belonging to high-risk groups,such as those who had high blood pressure (BP),were overweight, had abnormal fasting blood glucose, or had high total cholesterol, between people with mobility disabilities and non-disabled individuals.Data were extracted from the National Health Insurance in 2016 and 2017. Among the health checkup data, BP, overweight, fasting blood glucose, and total cholesterol were compared between 448,000 people with mobility disabilities and 13,000,000 non-disabled individuals using descriptive statistics and chi square tests. The majority of people with mobility disabilities were men, and on average, non-disabled people were younger than people with mobility disabilities in 2016 and 2017. In 2016, instances ofhigh blood pressure (p<.001), overweight (p<.001), and abnormal fasting blood glucose levels (p<.001) were significantly higher in people with mobility disabilities than in non-disabled people. In 2017, instances of high blood pressure (p<.001), overweight (p<.001),abnormal fasting blood glucose (p<.001), and high total cholesterol (p<.001), were significantly higher in people with mobility disabilities than non-disabled people. The proportion of people with mobility disabilitieswho had high blood pressure (p<.001), were overweight (p<.001), had abnormal fasting blood glucose (p<.001), andhad high total cholesterol (p<.001) slightly increased in 2017as compared to 2016.

The proportions of patients at risk for high BP, fasting glucose, and BMI were higher in people with mobility disabilities than in non-disabled people. This implies that it is necessary to establishan active health monitoring program for people withmobility disabilities.