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. 2019 Jul 29;9(1):10970.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-46965-4.

Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, and Control of Hypertension in Korea

Si-Hyuck Kang  1   2 , Sun-Hwa Kim  1 , Jun Hwan Cho  1   2 , Chang-Hwan Yoon  1   2 , Seung-Sik Hwang  3 , Hae-Young Lee  2   4 , Tae-Jin Youn  1   2 , In-Ho Chae  1   2 , Cheol-Ho Kim  5   6
Affiliations

Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, and Control of Hypertension in Korea

Si-Hyuck Kang et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to describe the temporal trends in prevalence and management status of hypertension in Korea between 1998 and 2015. Data of adults who were aged 30 years or older were extracted from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a nationwide representative population-based survey. Hypertension was prevalent in 30.5% of Korean adults. The age and sex standardized prevalence showed little change between 1998 and 2015. The elderly population and men showed higher prevalence. The rates of awareness, treatment, and control showed substantial improvements among hypertensive subjects between 1998 and the time period of 2007‒2009 (awareness, from 23.5 to 66.3%; treatment, from 20.4 to 60.3%; and control, from 4.9 to 42.1%), after which the numbers reached a plateau and no significant changes were observed subsequently (67.3%, 63.6%, and 46.2%, respectively, between 2013 and 2015). The management status remained poor especially among the young population and in men. In conclusion, the hypertension prevalence remained stable at approximately 30% in Korea between 1998 and 2015. While awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension improved remarkably, the young population and particularly men showed a suboptimal management status.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Trends in the prevalence of hypertension in Korea: (A) crude prevalence, (B) age-standardized prevalence, (C) prevalence across different age groups, and (D) prevalence according to sex and age in 2013‒2015.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Trends in the awareness of hypertension in Korea: (A) overall awareness and (B) awareness across different age groups.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Trends in the treatment of hypertension in Korea: (A) overall treatment and (B) treatment across different age groups.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Trends in the control of hypertension in Korea. Control (1) is the rate of control among subjects with hypertension: (A) overall control and (B) control across different age groups. Control (2) is the rate of control among subjects with hypertension who were receiving treatment: (C) overall control and (D) control across different age groups.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Temporal trends of mean blood pressure in the general Korean population.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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