Usefulness for surveillance of hypertension prevalence studies in Latin America and the Caribbean: the past 10 years Utilidad de los estudios de prevalencia para la vigilancia de la hipertensión en América Latina y el Caribe: los 10 últimos años

• Main Authors: Melissa S. Burroughs Peña, Carmen Verônica Mendes Abdala, Luis Carlos Silva, Pedro Ordúñez
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2012
• Subjects: Hipertensión; factores de riesgo; salud pública; vigilancia; América Latina; región del Caribe; Hypertension; risk factors; epidemiological surveillance; cross-sectional studies; Latin America; Caribbean region; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/796b08380d6445889035f299eb81fb07

OBJECTIVE: To compare the usefulness for surveillance of the peer-reviewed literature on the prevalence of hypertension in Latin America and the Caribbean published from 2001 to 2010 with a previous study of the published literature from 1962 to 2000. METHODS: A bibliographic search was conducted of publications from 2001 to 2010 that examined the prevalence of hypertension using MEDLINE and LILACS databases. The methodology of each paper was evaluated with the same critical appraisal tool used in the previous study. RESULTS: A total of 81 papers were published from 2001 to 2010 on the prevalence of hypertension in Latin America and the Caribbean. Only 24 of these studies met the minimum methodologic criteria for evaluation. While the total number of studies published in the past 10 years exceeds the number published from 1962 to 2000, the percentage of studies that met the minimum methodologic criteria has not substantially increased. In addition to major methodologic shortcomings, less than 46% of the published studies reported rates of awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension. The hypertension prevalence estimates from the peer-reviewed literature range from 7% to 49%. These studies were primarily done in urban centers and are not evenly distributed throughout the region. CONCLUSIONS: The quality and geographic distribution of the published literature on the prevalence of hypertension in Latin America and the Caribbean are inadequate. Research resources and efforts should be directed in the future toward closing this gap. OBJETIVO: Comparar la utilidad para la vigilancia epidemiológica de los artículos sobre prevalencia de hipertensión en América Latina y el Caribe publicados en revistas con arbitraje científico del 2001 al 2010, con un estudio anterior de la bibliografía publicada en el período 1962-2000. MÉTODOS: En las bases de datos MEDLINE y LILACS se efectuó una búsqueda bibliográfica de los artículos que examinaron la prevalencia de hipertensión publicados del 2001 al 2010. La metodología ...