Association Between Household Type and Cardiovascular Disease Prevalence: A Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Study (2019–2021)

Background/Objectives: To investigate the association between household type and the prevalence of hypertension, dyslipidemia, and ischemic heart disease, with a focus on the implications for cardiovascular disease prevention and management in one-person households. Methods: This study used data from 15,913 adults aged ≥19 years from the eighth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted once per year between 2019 and 2021. Results: Significant differences in demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, comorbidities, and health-related behaviors were observed between one-person and multi-person households. In unadjusted analyses, living alone was associated with higher odds of hypertension, dyslipidemia, and ischemic heart disease. After adjustment for age, sex, socioeconomic characteristics, health-related behaviors, and comorbidities, living alone remained significantly associated with hypertension (OR = 1.149, 95% CI: 1.022–1.292), whereas the associations with dyslipidemia (OR = 1.007, 95% CI: 0.893–1.136) and ischemic heart disease (OR = 1.143, 95% CI: 0.901–1.451) were not statistically significant. Conclusions: Living alone was associated with a higher prevalence of hypertension after adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, behavioral, and comorbidity-related factors. In contrast, the initially observed associations with dyslipidemia and ischemic heart disease were attenuated after adjustment. These findings suggest that differences in individual characteristics may account for a substantial portion of the crude associations between household type and cardiovascular conditions. Given the cross-sectional design, causal or temporal relationships cannot be established.