In France, nearly one in three adults suffer from high blood pressure and half of them don’t know it, Public Health France said on Tuesday, deploring the lack of recent progress against the disease.
Nearly 30% of adults are hypertensive, or 17 million people, the health agency says, based on two general population surveys and a survey of a panel of general practitioners and the National Health Data System.
“No recent improvements”
However, the knowledge, treatment and control of hypertension remain “suboptimal and have not seen any recent improvement, some indicators have even suffered a deterioration”, laments Public Health France.
Thus, only one in two hypertensives is aware of their disease. A figure that remains, according to the health agency, well below the level of knowledge reached in other European or North American countries.
For the agency, this lack of knowledge can be explained, in particular, by insufficiently effective screening or by the difficulty of understanding and acceptance of the diagnosis by patients when the disease is announced. Among patients, only one in four have their blood pressure controlled, he continues.
Impact of Covid-19
And if more than 1.6 million adults start antihypertensive treatment each year, “the Covid-19 crisis has had a significant impact with an 11% drop in these starts in relation to a decrease in the use of care.”
In 2020, this decrease was especially significant among women (-16%), even exceeding the 30% decrease among those aged 75 to 84 compared to the decrease observed among men (-5%). And in 2021, contrary to what was observed in men, no recovery was observed in women.
“Health policies in favor of the primary prevention of arterial hypertension, its detection and its management must be implemented quickly to allow, as in other countries, a favorable evolution of the epidemiological indicators of the disease”, concludes Public Health France.
Source: BFM TV
