25-Year trends in hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control in an Indian urban population: Jaipur Heart Watch

Objectives: We evaluated trends in hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control in an Indian urban population over 25 years. Trends were projected to year 2030 to determine attainment of World Health Organization (WHO) Global Monitoring Framework targets. Methods: Adult participants (n = 7440, men 4237, women 3203) enrolled in successive population based studies in Jaipur, India from years 1991 to 2015 were evaluated for hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control. The studies were performed in years 1991–93 (n = 2212), 1999–01 (n = 1123), 2003–04 (n = 458), 2006–07 (n = 1127), 2009–10 (n = 739) and 2012–15 (n = 1781). Descriptive statistics are reported. We used logarithmic forecasting to year 2030 and compared outcomes to WHO target of 25% lower prevalence and >50% control. Results: The age-adjusted hypertension prevalence (%) among adults in successive studies increased from 29.5, 30.2, 36.5, 42.1, 34.4 to 36.1 (R2 = 0.41). Increasing trends were observed for hypertension awareness (13, 44, 49, 44, 49, 56; R2 = 0.63); treatment in all (9, 22, 38, 34, 41, 36; R2 = 0.68) and aware hypertensives (61, 66, 77, 79, 70, 64; R2 = 0.46); and control in all (2, 14, 13, 18, 21, 21; R2 = 0.82), aware (12, 33, 27, 46, 37, 37; R2 = 0.54) and treated (9, 20, 21, 48, 36, 49; R2 = 0.80) hypertensive participants. Projections to year 2030 show increases in prevalence to 44% (95% CI 43–45), awareness to 82% (81–83), treatment to 62% (61–63), and control to 36% (35–37). Conclusion: Hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control rates are increasing among urban populations in India. Better awareness is associated with greater control. The rates of increase are off-target for WHO Global Monitoring Framework and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Keywords: Non-communicable diseases, Lower-middle income countries, Sustainable development goals, Hypertension epidemiology, India