Body Weight and Hypertension Risk in a Developing Country

Abstract

Abstract. This study provides a first causal inference of the link between body weight and the risk of hypertension among adults in a developing country, Vietnam. The study uses biological offspring's body weight as an instrument for exogenous changes in parents' body weight to address the potential problem of endogeneity and applies the instrumental variable approach to estimate the relationship of interest. The paper finds that on average an addition BMI unit causally increases the likelihood of being hypertensive by about 5.1-7.3% points for men and 5.6-8.2% points for women. The paper also shows that the impacts of body weight on the risk of hypertension are different with various age intervals. Furthermore, overweight or obesity causally enlarges the risk of hypertension compared to underweight or normal weight.

Effect of Obesity and Other Risk Factors on Hypertension among Women of Reproductive Age in Ghana: An Instrumental Variable Probit Model

“…A quick review of the literature provides the needed directions in selecting instrumental variable within the orbits of the proposed study. Following some previous studies [25,26,27], Dang [28] analysed the effect of body weight on hypertension in Vietnam using the offspring’s body weight as instrumental variable. It was found that body weight increased the likelihood of being hypertensive, although significant variations existed within various age intervals.…”