Nearly one in three French people suffer from hypertension, but half ignore it, public health alert France

It is the most common chronic disease in France. Nearly one in three adults suffer from high blood pressure and half of them are unaware of it, underlined Tuesday, May 16 Public Health France. In total, 17 million people are hypertensive, according to the health agency, which is based on two general population surveys, a survey of a panel of general practitioners and the National Health Data System.

High blood pressure is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, she recalls. Yet the knowledge, treatment and control of hypertension remain “sub-optimal and have seen no recent improvement, with some indicators even deteriorating”deplores Public Health France.

Insufficiently effective screening

Thus, only one out of two hypertensives is aware of their disease. A figure which remains, according to the health agency, far below the level of knowledge reached in other European or North American countries. For the agency, this lack of knowledge can be explained in particular by insufficiently effective screening or the difficulty of understanding and acceptance of the diagnosis by patients when the disease is announced.

Among the patients, only one in four has controlled blood pressure, she continues. And if more than 1.6 million adults initiate antihypertensive treatment each year, “the Covid-19 crisis had a significant impact with an 11% drop in these initiations linked to a decrease in the use of care”. Public Health France calls for the development of “health policies in favor of the primary prevention of arterial hypertension, its screening, and its management”.