¹Mexican Health Foundation, Ministry of Health, Mexico

²National Institute of Nutrition Salvador Zubiran, Ministry of Health, Mexico

³General Directorate of Epidemiology, Ministry of Health, Mexico

⁴General Directorate of Environmental Health, Ministry of Health, Mexico

⁵UnderSecretary for the Prevention and Control of Disease, Ministry of Health, Mexico

Correspondence to: Dr P Arroyo, Periférico Sur 4809 El Arenal Tepepan, Tlalpan 14610 Mexico D.F.Mexico

The purpose of this work is to estimate the prevalence of hypertension in the urban population of Mexico. We studied a multistage national sample representative of the urban population in 417 cities of over 2500 people. The blood pressure of 14 657 individuals (6053 men and 8604 women) aged 20-69 years was measured after a 5-min rest using a standard mercury sphygmomanometer. The survey personnel had been previously trained and standardised. The main results show a crude prevalence of hypertension, as defined by the JNC VI, of 28.1% in women and 37.5% in men (27.2% and 37.1% age-adjusted). Both genders exhibited a trend of increasing hypertension with age. In individuals under 50 years of age, women had lower rates than men, but the difference disappeared in the older groups. The awareness of hypertension (28%) as well as the success of treatment (22%) were low in our sample. Our results had more similarities than differences with respect to those observed in other national surveys. It is concluded that hypertension in Mexico is an important public health problem similar to that seen in developing and developed nations. Efforts should be aimed at strengthening measures to prevent and control hypertension in Mexico. More information is needed of the sort obtained from longitudinal studies.

hypertension; cross-sectional study; population survey; Mexico