Hypertension control has improved in the country over the past few years, but undiagnosed and uncontrolled blood pressure among people remains a concern, says a study published in The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia.
The study was titled ‘Hypertension control rate in India: Systematic review and meta-analysis of population-level non-interventional studies, 2001-2022’.
Althaf Ali, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, who is one of the authors, said: “The pooled control status for hypertension between 2001 and 2020 was 17.5%. The figure for the period between 2016 and 2020, however, is 22.5%. This means initiatives such as the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Stroke are making an impact and that the efforts to control hypertension have been successful in these five years. However, it also stresses the need for more intervention among more than three-fourths of the people suffering from the condition.”
The study showed that significantly better control rates exist in the southern and western regions of the country. Men have a poorer control rate. More studies have been sought to examine lifestyle risk factors and the non-medical factors that are relevant to control blood pressure.
Public health experts pointed out that uncontrolled blood pressure is one of the main risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as heart attack and stroke. These are also responsible for one-third of the total deaths in India. Hypertension kills more adults than any other cause and it is estimated that at least one in four adults in the country has high blood pressure. Treatment of people with high risk of CVD is one of the best methods recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and scaling uphypertension treatment and control can save millions of lives, they added.
Dr. Ali suggested that the national programme could be redesigned into a more sustainable, expandable and decentralised model, involving community health workers such as the Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and supervised by middle-level providers, including nurses. Further, the services of private sector could be utilised as these provide a significant proportion of hypertension control services.
The other authors of the study are Shaffi Fazaludeen Koya of Boston University School of Public Health, and Zarin Pilakkadavath of Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, USA; Praseeda Chandran of the Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Manjeri, Malappuram; Tom Wilson of the Department of Community Medicine, Kannur Medical College, Anjarakandy, Kannur; Serin Kuriakose of the National Centre for Disease Control, New Delhi; and Sunil K. Akbar KIMS Al-Shifa Specialty Hospital, Perinthalmanna, Malappuram.
