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Abstract
Reliable information about the prevalence of hypertension in different world regions
is essential to the development of national and international health policies for
prevention and control of this condition. We aimed to pool data from different regions
of the world to estimate the overall prevalence and absolute burden of hypertension
in 2000, and to estimate the global burden in 2025.
We searched the published literature from Jan 1, 1980, to Dec 31, 2002, using MEDLINE,
supplemented by a manual search of bibliographies of retrieved articles. We included
studies that reported sex-specific and age-specific prevalence of hypertension in
representative population samples. All data were obtained independently by two investigators
with a standardised protocol and data-collection form.
Overall, 26.4% (95% CI 26.0-26.8%) of the adult population in 2000 had hypertension
(26.6% of men [26.0-27.2%] and 26.1% of women [25.5-26.6%]), and 29.2% (28.8-29.7%)
were projected to have this condition by 2025 (29.0% of men [28.6-29.4%] and 29.5%
of women [29.1-29.9%]). The estimated total number of adults with hypertension in
2000 was 972 million (957-987 million); 333 million (329-336 million) in economically
developed countries and 639 million (625-654 million) in economically developing countries.
The number of adults with hypertension in 2025 was predicted to increase by about
60% to a total of 1.56 billion (1.54-1.58 billion).
Hypertension is an important public-health challenge worldwide. Prevention, detection,
treatment, and control of this condition should receive high priority.