Association of blood pressure and hypertension between parents and offspring: The Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

As the number of hypertension cases in the pediatric population is growing, we aimed to investigate the parent-offspring association of hypertension in Korea. We performed a cross-sectional analysis using the data of children and adolescents aged 10-18 years and their parents extracted from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2008-2018). We analyzed the correlation of blood pressure (BP) between offspring and their parents and investigated the odds ratio (OR) of having hypertension in offspring based on parental hypertensive status. A total of 3996 children and adolescents (2224 boys and 1772 girls) aged 10-18 years and their parents (3197 fathers and 3197 mothers) were evaluated. Both boys and girls had positive associations with both parents for systolic and diastolic BP. When neither parent, only the father, only the mother, or both parents were hypertensive, 6.6%, 10.4%, 13.3%, and 25.3% of boys and 6%, 12%, 12.7%, and 22.1% of girls had hypertension, respectively. The risk of having hypertension among offspring was approximately two times higher when one parent was hypertensive and over four times higher when both parents were hypertensive compared to that among controls whose parents were not hypertensive (OR: 2.230, 1.655, and 5.021 in boys with hypertension and 2.321, 2.169, and 4.554 in girls with hypertension in the mother only, the father only, and both parents, respectively). We identified familial aggregation of hypertension in Korea. As there was an increased likelihood of having hypertension in children with parental hypertension, parental hypertension may be utilized as a screening tool for hypertension in children.