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Hypertension in the civilian flying population: significant or not?
Abstract:
Hypertension is a significant illness that affects a large portion of the population of the United States. We have determined the extent of this illness within the civilian pilot population of the U.S. We reviewed data pertaining to the current prevalence of hypertension in the general population and compared these results to similar data on the pilot population. Though there are some limitations to a direct comparison of these data, we found the pilot population to be significantly different from the general population. The prevalence of hypertension in the general population was 30 times greater than for pilots. Though the overall prevalence in pilots was small, we still consider hypertension to be a significant illness in this group.
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