THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A Study Y by a leading social science school in the country has found that more than eight out of every hundred people in the 15-49 age group in the state have hypertension. Even more worrying is that high blood pressure is relatively higher among people from the lower socioeconomic background, due to various reasons. Health experts questioned the study report, saying hypertension prevalence rate among adults in the state could be as high as 30 per cent.
The study, conducted by the School of Health Systems Studies of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), is said to be the first attempt to provide figures on the prevalence of high blood pressure at the national, state and district levels.
It is based on the Fourth National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-16. The study carried out by Soumitra Ghosh and Manish Kumar was published in the British Medical Journal on Monday. The 8.2 per cent prevalence rate in Kerala, the study said, is the lowest among all states.
Alcoholism reason for rural folk’s high blood pressure
“When it comes to Kerala, the burden of hypertension is relatively higher among people from lower socioeconomic groups than those from higher groups. This is seen more among the rural folk than their urban counterparts,” reads an excerpt from the study.Dr Harikrishnan S, professor of cardiology at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology here said: “Factors like alcoholism, everyday lives in congested conditions and more exposure to polluted air could be some of the reasons for the increased blood pressure level among rural folk.”
Dr K R Thankappan, professor, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, went a step further.“If the study has come out with a finding that Kerala has the least prevalence of hypertension in the country, it’s a disputable one,” he said.
“The prevalence rate of hypertension is high in the state. More than 30 per cent of the adult population suffer from it. It’s also one of the states that had the highest cases of hypertension in the country,” said Thankappan, who agreed with the finding that the high blood pressure cases are more among the rural population than urban ones. He added that risk factors like physical inactivity, consumption of high-calorie food and alcohol are also prevalent among the rural population.