{"id":1212,"date":"2014-06-24T10:14:44","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T08:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ijph.blogs.springer.com\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2014-06-24T10:14:44","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T08:14:44","slug":"big-differences-between-diagnosed-and-undiagnosed-hypertension-in-usa-and-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/general-public-health\/big-differences-between-diagnosed-and-undiagnosed-hypertension-in-usa-and-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"Big differences between diagnosed and undiagnosed hypertension in USA and Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"\"hypertension\"<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to the World Health Organisation, 1 billion people are affected by hypertension<\/a>, which makes it a global health issue. There are not a lot of studies comparing hypertension prevalence rates between the United States and Europe, especially in older adults.<\/p>\n

In a study <\/a>we recently published, Irene Mosca <\/a>and Rose Anne Kenny \u00a0<\/a>compared prevalence rates of diagnosed , measured, total and undiagnosed hypertension among late middle-aged adults in the United States and Ireland. They also sought to identify the most important predictors of hypertension in the two countries and to investigate whether cross-sectional differences in prevalence rates are explained by country differences in behavioural risk factors, such as smoking and drinking.<\/p>\n

Data from the Health and Retirement Study\u00a0<\/a>and the The Irish Longitudinal Study of Ageing <\/a>were analysed (n=1,938 and n=1,455 respectively). Both studies used provided comparable information. The prevalence of diagnosed hypertension in the US was 48.6%, compared to 32.4% in Ireland. Undiagnosed hypertension, however was much higher in Ireland (41.2%), compared to 19.7% in the US. In both countries obesity was positively associated with diagnosed, measured and total hypertension and negatively associated with undiagnosed hypertension.<\/p>\n

Little of the difference in prevalence rates of diagnosed and undiagnosed hypertension was explained by country differences in behavioural risk factors: even if the Irish had the same level of behavioural risk factors as the average American in this age group, this would explain about 1\/4 of the difference of diagnosed and undiagnosed hypertension.<\/p>\n

The authors conclude that, overall, differences in the clinical systems, community programmes and environmental and policy support are likely to be important factors behind the identified differences. There is a greater focus on prevention is necessary in Ireland.<\/p>\n

What do you think? What might be possible explanations for these differences?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*picture credit<\/a> and also<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  According to the World Health Organisation, 1 billion people are affected by hypertension, which makes it a global health issue. There are not a lot of studies comparing hypertension prevalence rates between the United States and Europe, especially in older adults. In a study we recently published, Irene Mosca and Rose Anne Kenny \u00a0compared… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":301,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,11],"tags":[225,359,415,463,555,679,756,886,920,930],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-public-health","category-hot-off-the-press","category-international-journal-of-public-health","tag-diagnosed","tag-health-and-retirement-study","tag-hypertension","tag-ireland","tag-measured","tag-prevention","tag-risk-factors","tag-the-irish-longitudinal-study-of-ageing","tag-undiagnosed","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/301"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.springer.com\/ijph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}