May Measurement Month 2017: analysis of the blood pressure screening results in Ecuador—Americas

Abstract

Elevated blood pressure (BP) is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10 million deaths each year. Previous hypertension surveys in Ecuador, showed that there was a prevalence of 28% of adults with hypertension in 1999, 53% in adults between 60 and 75 years in 2010, and. 9.3% in people between 18 and 59 years in 2012 [Freire WB, Ramírez-Luzuriaga MJ, Belmont P, Mendieta MJ, Silva-Jaramillo MK, Romero N, Sáenz K, Piñeiros P, Gómez LF, Monge R. Tomo I: Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutrición de la población ecuatoriana de cero a 59 años. ENSANUT-ECU 2012. Ministerio de Salud Pública/Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos. Quito-Ecuador 2014]. The May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative aimed at raising awareness of high BP that can temporarily address the lack of screening programmes worldwide. Verbal informed consent was obtained from respondents. We enrolled 16 sites for the measurement of arterial BP and completion of the MMM17 questionnaire, the most important sites being: Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Milagro, Esmeraldas, Duran, Naranjito, and Machala. We administered the MMM17 survey on 6984 people, of which 50.5% of them were men and 48.4% were women. Mean age was 46.62 ± 17.71 SD. The crude mean BP was 115/74 mmHg. Of the 6984 people who completed the survey, we had 1522 that were already taking anti-hypertensive treatment. The number of people with hypertension (≥140 or ≥90 or on treatment for hypertension) was 1968/6982 (28.2%) persons. The number of people with hypertension of those not receiving treatment was 446/5460 (8.2%) and the number of people receiving treatment but with controlled and uncontrolled BP was 1136/1522 (74.6%) and 386/1522 (25.4%), respectively. MMM17 was the largest BP screening campaign undertaken in Ecuador. We identified 446 people with hypertension that were not receiving any treatment and 386 people with uncontrolled hypertension. These results suggest that opportunistic screening can identify significant numbers with raised BP.

Low levels of awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in Andean communities of Ecuador

“…Currently, there are national and international interventions aimed to improve the diagnosis and management of HTN. For instance, Ecuador is implementing the May Month of Measurement (MMM) initiative 16 …”

May Measurement Month 2018: an analysis of blood pressure screening results from Ecuador

“…In addition, these MMM data will help the authorities implement actions to control and treat arterial HTN. In relation to MMM17, we have more hypertensive people 38.3% vs. 28.2% 5 but this may reflect differential sampling. Rates of hypertensive individuals with uncontrolled BP despite receiving medication and hypertensive individuals not on medication appears to be higher in MMM18 compared with MMM17 (28.6% vs. 25.4% and 15.0% vs. 8.2%, 5 respectively).…”

“…The Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) 4 showed a cardiovascular mortality of 27%, and ischaemic heart disease mortality of 15%. May Measurement Month 2017 (MMM17) 5 data on 6984 individuals, of which 50.5% were male and with an average age of 46.6 years, found a prevalence of HTN of 28.2%. Of hypertensive individuals, 8.2% were not receiving treatment.…”

May Measurement Month 2019: an analysis of blood pressure screening results from Ecuador

“…The biggest impact is to implement the correct measurement of the arterial pressure following international regulations to have the most accurate data, with a preceding rest of 5 min, in the correct position, and three separate measurements at 1-min intervals between each measurement. There has been a significant increase in volunteers participating in consecutive MMM programs: in MMM17, 6 6984 volunteers, in MMM18, 7 11 922 and in MMM19, 15 885. The proportion deemed hypertensive in these 3 years were 28.2%, 38.3%, and 41.9%, respectively.…”

“…The Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) 5 showed a cardiovascular mortality of 27%, and ischaemic heart and cerebrovascular mortality of 10.1% and 7%, respectively. In MMM17, 6 of the 6984 people who completed the survey, 28.2% had hypertension and of these, 21.9% were taking anti-hypertensive treatment. The proportion of people with hypertension among those not receiving treatment was 8.2% and 25.4% of people receiving treatment had uncontrolled BP (≥140/90 mmHg).…”