The United States Surgeon General is calling on healthcare providers to help make hypertension control a national public health priority.
Surgeon General VADM Jerome M. Adams, M.D., M.P.H., on Wednesday announced the release of a new document, “The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Control Hypertension,” detailing strategies clinicians can use to educate patients and help them get chronic high blood pressure under control.
The nation’s medical community has hit a plateau in its efforts to reduce the numbers of people with uncontrolled hypertension, Adams said in a statement. The new call to action summarizes recent data, identifies specific goals and strategies, and provides recommendations for areas of focus when resources are limited, he said.
“Our country has many hypertension control champions — doctors, practices, communities, and health systems that have excelled at achieving high rates of hypertension control among their patients. We need to learn from their many years of ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ and apply their principles in new settings,” Adams added.
“We need everyone on board … to get Americans the resources they need to control their blood pressure,” he concluded in a video statement.
Nearly one in two adults have hypertension, yet only about one in four have it under control, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The condition affects Black Americans disproportionately, contributing in turn to relatively worse health outcomes in this population. People with hypertension also may be at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
