Working meeting on blood pressure measurement: suggestions for measuring blood pressure to use in populations surveys

• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2003
• Subjects: Blood pressure; blood pressure determination; hypertension; guidelines; population surveillance; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/06b2cbb224cf494e8d89146b60c60bc9

As part of the Pan American Hypertension Initiative (PAHI), the Pan American Health Organization and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health of the United States of America conducted a working meeting to discuss blood pressure (BP) measurement methods used in various hypertension prevalence surveys and clinical trials, with the objective of developing a BP measurement protocol for use in hypertension prevalence surveys in the Americas. No such common protocol has existed in the Americas, so it has been difficult to compare hypertension prevention and intervention strategies. This piece describes a proposed standard method for measuring blood pressure for use in population surveys in the Region of the Americas. The piece covers: considerations for developing a common blood pressure measurement protocol, critical issues in measuring blood pressure in national surveys, minimum procedures for blood pressure measurement during surveillance, and quality assessment of blood pressure.