Gender Disparities in the Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment, and Control of High Blood Pressure

Abstract

The gender effects in arterial hypertension (HT) epidemiology remain poorly clarified to date. We present an up-to-date review of the data regarding gender disparities in HT’s prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control. Based on the data from three consecutive national-representative SEPHAR (Study for the Evaluation of Prevalence of Hypertension and Cardiovascular Risk in Romania) surveys conducted between 2005 and 2016, we provide insights into gender differences in HT’s epidemiology and their 11- years the evolutionary trend in a high-CV risk European country. Our data displays gender effects in different age-dependent epidemiological patterns in terms of hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control, mainly due to hormonal status. Hypertension’s prevalence is higher in younger men and older women. Although women are more often aware of their hypertensive condition and receive more often antihypertensive treatment, BP control is lower in older women compared to men of the same age, mainly due to a higher treatment side-effect rate. There is no solid evidence that different antihypertensive drugs exhibit different effects in lowering BP values between genders. In high CV risk European countries like Romania, if all the influencing conditions remain similar to those in the past 11 years, gender discrepancies in terms of HT's prevalence will diminish over time, awareness and treatment of hypertension will continue to be higher in females than in men, with an upward trend of BP control predicted only for women, while in men HT treatment control rate is expected to stagnate.