Pattern of body mass index, chronic diseases, and physical component of quality of life in a population in North of Iran: A latent class analysis

Background: Due to the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and lifestyle changes, this study aimed at determining the subclasses of Iranian adults based on body mass index, some NCDs, and status of physical component of quality of life. Methods: A total of 5207 participants of Amol cohort study were studied in this study. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to determine the best model with the minimum AIC or BIC. Results: We decided that the 6 latent classes model was the best model. The first class described 35.1% of the participants and was characterized by individuals with no disease status. The sixth class described 0.7% of the individuals and was characterized by individuals exhibiting high probability of body mass index (BMI) equal or more than 25, kidney inadequacy, hypertension, and moderate physical component of quality of life status. Conclusion: This study showed the pattern of body mass index, chronic diseases, and physical component of quality of life. Our findings demonstrated that some risk factors and non-communicable diseases tend to accumulate in some classes, especially classes 5 and 6, and thus the risk of developing these diseases rises along with increase in their clustering abilities. These results point out the critical importance of designing specific preventive interventional programs for these stratums of individuals.