The burden of blood-pressure-related cardiovascular mortality in Mexico

Abstract

This study shows that in Mexico, a country at an advanced stage in the epidemiologic transition, with the national burden of disease dominated by noncommunicable diseases, elevated blood pressure is a major clinical and public health problem. 31.7% of the Mexican individuals aged 50 and over had systolic hypertension, and 47.3% were at systolic prehypertensive levels. Also, approximately half of all cardiovascular deaths that occurred annually in the population of Mexico aged ≥50 years are attributable to above optimal levels of systolic blood pressure. We think these estimates may help order health priorities in Mexico (and other middle-income countries) at a time when the costs of medical care take a considerable share of the gross national product in most countries.

Figure 1

Percent mortality from all cardiovascular diseases attributable to higher-than-optimal systolic blood pressure in the population of Mexico aged 50 and over in 2010. The curve represents the smoothed distribution of systolic blood pressure (SBP) in the 2005-2006 Mexican sample based on SBP categories. The risk line represents the internationally-based relative risk values of cardiovascular mortality corresponding to each SBP category. The numbers at the heads of the bars indicate the percentages of all cardiovascular deaths occurred in Mexico in 2010 attributable to each category of SBP, by age.