title: Historical cohort study on the factors affecting blood pressure in workers of polyacryl iran corporation using bayesian multilevel modeling with skew T distribution.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hypertension is considered as a major public health problem in most countries due to its association with ischemic heart disease which causes cerebrovascular disease and death.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of the present study was to study factors affecting Blood Pressure (BP).
  
  
  METHODS
  The data were extracted from annual observation of the workers who worked in Polyacryl Iran Corporation (PIC) between 1998 and 2010. In this research, we assessed the effect of Body Mass Index (BMI), age, sex, job status, marital status, job schedule type, and education level on Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) using Bayesian multilevel modeling with skew t distribution using WinBUGS software.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Totally 3965 persons participated in this study, 75(1.9%) female and 3890 (98.1%) male. In this study age, sex, BMI, job status, marital status, and education level had statistical association with SBP. The result for DBP was similar to SBP except the education level which had no statistical association.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Treating obesity, increasing physical activity and quality of married life are proposed as practical solutions to reduce BP.
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics Department, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gholami Fesharaki
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics Department, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Anoshirvan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kazemnejad
authors.affiliation: Proteomics Research Center, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Farid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zayeri
authors.affiliation: Occupational Health Center, Polyacryle Company, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Javad
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sanati
authors.affiliation: Health Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Hamed
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Akbari
keywords: Blood Pressure; Cohort Studies; Multilevel Analysis