(March 7, 2011)—Recent statistical data-report, released yesterday by William Carroll, concluded that the rate of hypertension in America is increasing, similarly to the globally increasing rates of metabolic syndrome and obesity. The report has been published in the news release of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
The AHRQ report aimed to examine variations in the percentage of adults with diagnosed hypertension and to classify them by race/ethnicity, age, educational status, family income, and insurance status. All adults were classified as being diagnosed with hypertension by two or more different medical healthcare professional visits, on the basis of their response of “yes.”
A positive relationship was observed between diagnosis and age (2.7 percent among persons 18-24 years old and 58.9 percent among persons 65 years and older). Data of already diagnosed with hypertension adults were not distributed evenly across all subgroups of adults. There was no a significant gender difference in the proportion of adults who had been diagnosed with hypertension-about one-quarter of all adults.
One-quarter of all overweight and half of all morbidly obese adults had been diagnosed with hypertension, as compared with 15% of normal-weight adults. Data of increasing body weight, elevated stress levels, and reduced activity levels were associated with increased likelihood of a hypertension diagnosis.
About 62 percent of all the American adults diagnosed with hypertension were overweight, obese, or morbidly obese. They were all advised by a health professional to consume fewer fats or high cholesterol foods and simple carbohydrates. The 2008 MEPS data also showed that the percentage of adults diagnosed with hypertension also varied by lifestyle, exercise activity and stress.
Considering all lifestyle factors taken together, 13.9 percent of all adults who reported active and regular exercise was with normal weight. They felt calm all or most of the time and they were classified as lower risk patients. 59 percent of all the adults with hypertension were advised by a health professional to exercise more
The new AHRQ report was released just weeks after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, accounting also for the skyrocketing rates and statistical prevalence of hypertension in the U.S. The AHRQreport declared statistically significant differences at the p < 0.05 level. Otherwise, hypertension is remaining uncontrolled in more than half of US adults with the disease.
As concluded in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) statistical brief 315, “Estimates for the US civilian non-institutionalized population, age 18 and older, for 2008 or almost 59 million of all adult Americans have hypertension in 2008. Otherwise, over one-quarter of the entire adult American poppulation was found to have hypertension in 2008.”
As stated in the AHRQ report:
- 25.8 percent or 59.4 million (or one-quarter) of all the American poppulation was reported to have been diagnosed with hypertension by two or more health care visits vs. 19.4 percent of adults who were unaware they had the condition.
- The percentage of overweight adults with hypertension was 25.7 versus 15.2 percent among normal weight adults and the percentage of morbidly was 50.5 versus 15.2 percent, respectively.
- Activity level. The percentage of adults who reported half an hour or more in moderate or vigorous exercise /at least three times per week was lower than those who did not report this level of exercise (20.6 percent and 32.2 percent, respectively).
- Stress level. About 24.6 percent of adults who reported that they felt calm all or most of the time had been diagnosed with hypertension versus 28.6 percent of the adults who reported feeling higher stress.
- Hispanic black adults were with higher percent of morbidity (31.7 percent) compared to non-Hispanic white adults (26.8 percent).
- Racial differences. Hispanics (18.0 percent) showed lower percent than that non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks.
- Education. Lower levels of education were associated with a higher likelihood of ever having a diagnosis of hypertension-the percentage among adults with less than a high school education was about 30 percent greater than for adults with a college education (28.4 percent versus 21.3 percent, respectively).
- Financial status. Likelihood of hypertension diagnosis was highest among people with highest income and lowest for those with low income.
- Health insurance. Likelihood of hypertension diagnosis was lowest among uninsured adults (13.6 percent) and highest among those with public insurance (28.6 percent), vs. adults with private health insurance was in between (18.8 percent).
References
Carroll, W. Hypertension in America: Estimates for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, Age 18 and Older, 2008
Medical Expenditure Panel Survey statistical brief 315March 2011. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
