[A community-based survey on hypertension in the medium-aged-elderly in Jiuxianqiao area Beijing]

To investigate the epidemiologic features of hypertension and major risk factors in the middle-elderly in Jiuxianqiao area and to develop reasonable preventive strategies, from June to December 1996, nine communities of Jiuxianqiao area were selected for the study. Two thousand and fifty-five middle-elderly (age > or = 50 years old) were investigated including measurement of blood pressure and identifying risk factors of hypertension. Two hundred and thirty-nine hypertensive patients and two hundreds sixty-seven person with normal blood pressure from the study population were examined through oral 75 grams glucose tolerance and electrocardiogram. The prevalence rates of definite and borderline hypertension were 31.6% and 10.9% respectively with a total rate of 42.5%. The prevalence rate of definite hypertension in males was significantly higher than that in females (P < 0.05). The prevalence rate of systolic hypertension was 7.5% but increased paralelly with age (P < 0.05). The prevalence rate of systolic hypertension in females was not significantly higher than that in males. 25.6% of patients with hypertension under investigation denied or were ignorant about having hypertension. The prevalence rates of diabetes, impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and coronary heart disease in hypertensive group were significantly higher than that in people with normal blood pressure (P < 0.01).

Hypertension is a disease that seriously endangers the health of the middle-elderly in the community on which calls for more care and education in the community.