Hypertension

Hypertension Hypertension contributes to more cardiovascular disease events than any other risk factor in the United States and worldwide. However, it is a preventable and treatable risk factor. In addition to antihypertensive medication, physical activity, eating less sodium, eating more potassium, weight loss for those who are overweight and not drinking alcohol can lower blood pressure.

Hypertension in the overall US population

Over 40% of US adults have hypertension according to the 2017 ACC/AHA blood pressure guideline. According to the most recent NHANES data (NHANES 2017-2020), 44.9% of US adults have hypertension.

Hypertension by gender

Men are more likely to have hypertension compared with women. However, a high percentage of women have hypertension.

Hypertension by age group

The likelihood of having hypertension is higher among older versus younger adults. More than 80% of US adults ≥ 75 years of age hypertension.

Hypertension by race/ethnicity

Non-Hispanic black adults are more likely to have hypertension compared with other race-ethnic groups in the US. Research has reported this mostly being due to social determinants of health.

Hypertension definition

For this analysis, our definition of hypertension was:

Hypertension defined by the 2017 ACC/AHA BP guideline, systolic BP >= 130 mm Hg, diastolic BP >= 80 mm Hg or self-reported antihypertensive medication use.

You can use the online application to create figures for these results using the Seventh Joint National Committee definition of hypertension.

Who is included in this analysis

There were 107,622 NHANES 1999-2000 to 2017-March 2020 participants. We restricted the the dataset to adults >=18 years of age. This exclusion was applied because statistics for BP levels and hypertension in children and adolescents are markedly different than for adults. We further restricted the population to participants who completed the in-home interview and study examination, with one or more SBP and DBP measurement, and who had data on self-reported antihypertensive medication use. Last, we restricted the sample to non-pregnant adults.

After these exclusions, a total of 54102 participants were included for the current analysis.

Inclusion	Overall	1999-2000	2001-2002	2003-2004	2005-2006	2007-2008	2009-2010	2011-2012	2013-2014	2015-2016	2017-2020
Participants	107622	9965	11039	10122	10348	10149	10537	9756	10175	9971	15560
>=18 years old	63041	5448	5993	5620	5563	6228	6527	5864	6113	5992	9693
Completed interview and examination	59799	4976	5592	5303	5334	5995	6360	5615	5924	5735	8965
Had SBP and DBP measurements	56286	4755	5251	4902	5028	5670	6053	5436	5700	5557	8024
Had self-reported information on antihypertensive medication	56035	4694	5184	4838	5015	5665	6043	5337	5694	5552	8013
Not pregnant	54084	4369	4822	4550	4633	5590	5945	5248	5588	5444	7895

Age adjustment

For age adjustment in this analysis, we set the age distribution for the standard population to represent US adults from 1999 to 2020: 49.3%, 33.6%, 10.1%, and 7% being 18 to 44, 45 to 64, 65 to 74, and 75+ years of age, respectively

Make your own results

You can find the online application where customized graphs can be made here: https://bcjaeger.shinyapps.io/nhanesShinyBP/