Hypertension (HTN) is an important public health problem in both economically developed and developing nations. As per NFHS-4 prevalence rates for hypertension in rural India is 9.8% in men and 6.5% in women, and in rural West Bengal it is 8.8% in men and 7.2% in women (In the Age group 15-49 years). Hypertension is thought to be less common in rural areas, though data is limited and estimates vary widely depending on the methodology used. Hence such, community based studies on hypertension has now become an utmost necessity to not only assess the prevalence of hypertension & its risk factors among adults, but also to plan preventive strategies & promote the health of population in the rural communities of Bengal. To estimate the prevalence of hypertension, and to identify the risk factors of hypertension in the population, a study among adults of the rural community of Singur Block, Hooghly District of West Bengal was conducted.
Method: It was a community based cross sectional study, where 300 adults from 120 randomly selected households from one of the randomly selected villages, under the service area of Rural Health Unit and Training Centre Singur were studied for 6 months.
Results: Using the JNC VII criteria, Out of 300 study population, 45% were found to be hypertensive with 54.8% male and 45.2% female. Significant association was found with age, tobacco and alcohol addiction, extra salt intake, low fruit consumption, positive family history, stress, low physical activity, BMI and abdominal obesity while association with marital status, religion, caste, SES, educational qualification and nature of work was insignificant.
Conclusions: The prevalence of hypertension was found to be on the higher side compared to some previous reports of India and other Asian studies. It is therefore necessary to create awareness among the study population regarding adoption of healthy lifestyle measures for control of blood pressure.
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Journal of Hypertension: Open Access received 614 citations as per Google Scholar report
