Urban-rural disparities in hypertension prevalence and its influencing factors among Chinese middle-aged and older adults: Results from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), 2018

The urban-rural disparity in the prevalence of hypertension among middle-aged and older in China remains unclear. We used the data collected from the fourth wave (2018) of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) (n = 12,245) and analyzed using probit regression. Firstly, the prevalence of diagnosed, measured, total and undiagnosed hypertension is higher in urban areas than in rural areas (25.9% vs. 21.6%, 35.2% vs. 31.2%, 46.1% vs. 40.7%, and 20.2% vs. 19.1%, respectively). Past smokers and current smokers, compared with non-smokers, had a higher probability of total hypertension in rural areas (12.5% and 4.9%, respectively), and the difference was significant (p < 0.01). Compared with Sedentary exercisers, regular exercisers had a lower probability of total hypertension in rural areas than in urban areas (41.5% and 38.3%, respectively), and the difference was significant (p < 0.01). Our study shows that, Firstly, smoking is a significant risk factor for the urban-rural disparity of hypertension, which is significantly worse in rural areas. Secondly, though regular exercise helps prevent hypertension in both areas, urban residents need to exercise more.