High Blood Pressure / Hypertension

(Source: American Heart Association)

• High blood pressure / hypertension was listed on death certificates as the cause of death of 38,130 Americans in 1994 and was listed as a contributing cause on more than 180,000 other death certificates of stroke, heart attack and heart failure victims.
• About 50 million Americans age 6 and older have high blood pressure.
• One in four American adults has high blood pressure.
• The cause of 90 -- 95 percent of cases of high blood pressure isn't known; however, high blood pressure is easily detected and usually controllable.
• People with lower educational and income levels tend to have higher levels of blood pressure.
• From 1984 to 1994, the death rate from high blood pressure declined 3.9 percent, but the actual number of deaths rose 21.7 percent.

Age, Sex

• Men are at greater risk for high blood pressure than women until age 55. From age 55 to 74 the risks for men and women are about equal; after that, women are at greater risk than men.
• High blood pressure is two to three times more common in women taking oral contraceptive pills for five years or longer than in women not taking oral contraceptives.
• 73 percent of Japanese-American men ages 71 -- 93 have high blood pressure according to the Honolulu Heart Study.

Disability/Discharge

• Surveys conducted in 1991 -- 92 showed an estimated 2.2 million Americans age 15 and older had disabilities resulting from high blood pressure.
• 151,000 males and 221,000 females diagnosed with high blood pressure were discharged from hospitals in 1994.

---

** Preliminary estimate from Phase I of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III (NHANES III), 1988 -- 91.