ArticleJournal of the American College of Cardiology2025
Prevalence, Awareness, and Treatment of Hypertension in 37 African Countries: Trends From 2003 to 2022.
Article in Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Gaps in awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in Ethiopia: a care cascade analysis using nationally representative data.Preventive medicine reports · 2026Article
- The survival penalty: Age-based inequities in hypertension and diabetes management in African health systems (1990-2022) - a secondary quantitative analysis.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Pathway-specific polygenic risk scores for blood pressure traits in a West African cohort.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2026Article
- Prevalence and factors associated with obesity in Rwanda: Evidence from the 2022 NCD STEPS Survey.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundDespite the high burden of hypertension in Africa, multicountry and representative studies addressing hypertension-related outcomes are scarce.
objectivesWe estimated the distribution, time trends, and determinants of hypertension status, awareness, treatment, and control in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region (AFRO) countries.
methodsWe analyzed individual-level data from 61 national, subnational, or community surveys, including WHO STEPwise approach to NCD risk factor Surveillance surveys and Demographic and Health Surveys, conducted between 2003 and 2022 in 37 AFRO countries. Prevalence rates and their 95% CIs were age-standardized and accounted for survey and study-level weights. ORs were estimated using hierarchical logistic regression analysis with random effects for country and survey year.
resultsOf the 251,761 participants, 59.5% were female, mean age: 37.1 ± 12.3 in females and 38.6 ± 12.6 in males. Hypertension was diagnosed in 28.9% (95% CI: 27.6%-30.2%) of females and 26.1% (95% CI: 24.5%-27.7%) of males. Among hypertensive individuals, awareness was 62.4% (95% CI: 58.5%-66.3%) for females and 50.5% (95% CI: 44.5%-56.4%) for males; antihypertensive treatment was 15.0% (95% CI: 13.1%-16.9%) in females and 8.4% (95% CI: 6.7%-10.2%) in males; and control rates were 7.3% (95% CI: 5.8%-8.8%) for females and 3.7% (95% CI: 2.4%-4.9%) for males. In multivariable hierarchical analysis, prevalence of hypertension and awareness were associated with older age, higher body mass index, retirement, former smoking (females only), higher education level (with awareness only), and higher alcohol consumption (with awareness in males only). Conversely, lower odds of treatment and control were associated with current smoking and high alcohol consumption. Hypertension-related outcomes were also influenced by contextual (country-level) factors including life expectancy at birth, Gender Development Index, grams of fat per day per capita, Gross Domestic Product per capita, employment in agriculture, and urbanization. Between 2003 and 2022, the overall number of hypertension cases nearly doubled from 241 to 390 million, while treatment and control rates rose from 11.8% to 18.4% and from 7.6% to 9.2%, respectively.
conclusionsDespite improvement in hypertension awareness, the burden of untreated and uncontrolled hypertension in adults remains substantial in the AFRO with notable sex disparities.
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