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American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 148, No. 6: 528-538
Copyright © 1998 by The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health

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Systolic Blood Pressure Trends in US Adults between 1960 and 1980 Influence of Antihypertensive Drug Therapy

Shiriki K. Kumanyika1,2,, J. Richard Landis1,3, Yvonne L. Matthews-Cook1, Susan L. Almy1,4 and Susan J. Shirk Boehmer1

1Center for Biostatistics and Epidemiology, The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine Hershey, PA
2Current affiliation: Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, College of Health and Health Development Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL
3Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Philadelphia, PA
4Current affiliation: Statistics Unlimited, Inc. Westford, MA

Reprint requests to Dr. Shiriki K. Kumanyika, MC 517, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1919 West Taylor Street, Room 650, Chicago, IL 60612–7256.

Recent blood pressure trends reflect progress in hypertension control, but prevalent drug therapy precludes direct estimation of the component due to primary prevention. In data gathered on persons aged 35–74 years in three successive US health examination surveys (1960–1980), systolic blood pressure levels assuming no drug therapy were imputed by reassigning blood pressure to the upper end of the distribution for respondents reporting use of antihypertensive medication. Blood pressure was partitioned into four ordinal categories based on weighted percentiles of the 1960–1962 distributions for 35- to 44-year-old males and females who reported no use of antihypertensive medication. Cumulative logit models ({alpha} = 0.01) were used to estimate age-and sex-specific trends for blacks and whites within two strata (<25 or ≥25) of body mass index (BMI) (weight (kg)/height (m)2). Before imputation, systolic blood pressure decreased between 1960 and 1980; after imputation, significant decreases remained only in 35- to 44-year-old. Strong associations of black race and BMI ≥25 with higher blood pressures were present in models with and without drug therapy. Thus, according to the models, there has been little progress in decreasing racial or BMI-related blood pressure differentials. Above the age of 44 years, blood pressure trends were largely attributable to medication use. In contrast, data for 35- to 44-year-olds suggest progress in primary prevention. Am J Epidemiol 1998;148:528–38.

antihypertensive agents; blacks; blood pressure; body weight; ethnic groups; hypertension; obesity


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