Open AccessDevelopment and Validation of a Hypertension Prevalence Estimator Tool For Use in Clinical Settings
Author(s) -
Ritchey Matthew,
Yuan Keming,
Gillespie Cathleen,
Zhang Guangyu,
Ostchega Yechiam
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the journal of clinical hypertension
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1751-7176
pISSN - 1524-6175
DOI - 10.1111/jch.12746
Subject(s) - medicine , medline , estimator , statistics , law , political science , mathematics
Health systems are well positioned to identify and control hypertension among their patients. However, almost one third of US adults with uncontrolled hypertension are currently receiving medical care and are unaware of being hypertensive. This study describes the development and validation of a tool that health systems can use to compare their reported hypertension prevalence with their expected prevalence. Tool users provide the number of patients aged 18 to 85 years treated annually, stratified by sex, age group, race/ethnicity, and comorbidity status. Each stratum is multiplied by stratum‐specific national prevalence estimates and the amounts are summed to calculate the number of expected hypertensive patients. The tool's validity was assessed by applying samples from cohorts with known hypertension prevalence; small differences in expected vs actual prevalence were identified (range, −3.3% to 0.6%). This tool provides clinically useful hypertension prevalence estimates that health systems can use to help inform hypertension management quality improvement efforts.