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(Circulation. 2008;117:860-862.)
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Public Health and the Control of High Blood Pressure at the State Level

Asleep at the Switch or Running Low on Fuel?

George A. Mensah, MD

From the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga.

Correspondence to Dr George A. Mensah, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mailstop K-40, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Atlanta, GA 30341–3717. E-mail GMensah@cdc.gov

Key Words: Editorials • blood pressure • epidemiology • hypertension • morbidity • mortality

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
In the United States today, we know a great deal about the burden of high blood pressure (BP) and the inadequacy of its prevention and control at the national level.¹ The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), created through authorizing legislation of the National Health Survey Act of 1956, collects directly measured and self-reported data relevant to biological risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including high BP. Beginning in the early 1960s, NHANES has periodically provided health data (by number and percentage) on the US population, designated subgroups with high BP, and tracked trends in the prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of this condition.² In 1999, the program became a continuously running survey designed to collect data on a nationally representative sample of 5000 individuals for each year of the survey with release of data in 2-year cycles.³

Article p 905

	The National Burden of High Blood Pressure

 
Through the NHANES surveys, we now know that high BP affects >65 million adult Americans and that its prevalence has increased since the 1988 to 1994 period.^4,5 We also know that the overall BP control rate has increased significantly among men and women, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican Americans.^4,5 Although these national data are useful and encouraging, they do not tell us about the disease burden and level of BP control at the state or local level. But why might the additional knowledge of state or local burden of high BP be important? As much of a cliché as it may be, all health care is truly local. The availability . . . [Full Text of this Article]