High blood pressure: a hidden problem
Hypertension affects one in six adults in Hong Kong, but as its symptoms rarely show, most cases go undiagnosed, writes Sasha Gonzales
Is your blood pressure normal? There's a one-in-six chance that you have hypertension (high blood pressure), and you don't know it. With this finding from a University of Hong Kong study last year - and in line with the theme of hypertension for Sunday's World Health Day - the Health Department is launching a city-wide publicity and public education campaign tomorrow.
Nearly 50 organisations, including medical associations and district councils, have pledged their support of the campaign to raise awareness of hypertension and encourage healthy living. Some are organising community blood pressure checking activities.
The large-scale cohort study by HKU's School of Public Health revealed that among those with hypertension documented in the study (about 32 per cent of adults aged 20 and above), only about half of them (46 per cent) were ever diagnosed as hypertensive.
Even so, Dr Wayne Lam, an in-house physician at Hong Kong Adventist Hospital, says hypertension cases are typically diagnosed in a doctor's office only incidentally because it is usually asymptomatic.
The HKU study also found that the management of hypertension is suboptimal. Among those diagnosed, 70 per cent were prescribed blood pressure lowering medication, but only 42 per cent of this treated group attained good control of blood pressure.
The study confirmed the "rule of halves" in hypertension: roughly half of all hypertensive cases are diagnosed, half of those diagnosed are treated, and half of those treated are well-controlled.
