Prevalence Awareness Treatment and Age at Onset of Hypertension by Stages among Older Adults in India

Umakanta Sahoo, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Sanjay K Mohanty, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Introduction Hypertension is a disease of common and the single largest risk factor of premature mortality. Though studies on prevalence, awareness, treatment of hypertension are growing in India, there is no attempt on estimating cascade care by stage of hypertension. We estimated the prevalence, awareness and treatment and age at onset of hypertension by stages among older adults in India. We have used a sample of 73,396 individuals successfully interviewed in LASI. The age-sex adjusted estimates of hypertension by stages were estimated. Further, multinomial logistic regression was used to understand the potential predictors of hypertension by stages. We estimated that 39.9% older adults were pre-hypertensive, 22.1% were in grade I, 7.8% in grade II and 1.1% in grade III. The average age of hypertension onset among older adults with grade I and grade III at 56, but grade II at 57. Age, urban residence, BMI were the significant predictors with higher risk for stage III hypertension. A large proportion of grade II and grade III hypertensive patients are undiagnosed and untreated and carried a higher risk of premature mortality. The awareness and treatment of stage III hypertension were even lower among poorer and socially disadvantageous population.

Keywords: Health and Morbidity, Population Ageing, Longitudinal studies , Population and Development

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