High blood pressure in children and adolescents is a global public health problem, although its prevalence has not been well established for different reasons, in particular, due to the difficulty of assessing the presence of hypertension, given that blood pressure in children and adolescents changes depending on age and growth.
The study published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health analyzes the prevalence of hypertension according to measurements taken in the consultation or with measurements outside the consultation. In the first, in a total of 443,914 boys and girls, and ages up to 19 years, belonging to 21 countries, the average prevalence was 4.28%, increasing with age and with a maximum peak at 14 years. Comparing the prevalence between 2000 and 2020, the prevalence practically doubles, both in men (from 3.4 to 6.53%) and in women (from 3.025 to 5.82%). When the studies that diagnosed hypertension using both methods—clinical and outpatient measurements—were analyzed, it was close to 7%.
The authors conclude that pediatric hypertension is a public health problem, more prevalent in the presence of obesity and overweight, and they emphasize the need to harmonize diagnostic criteria and means.