Blood pressure patterns in rural, semi-urban and urban children in the Ashanti region of Ghana, West Africa
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Date
2005
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BioMed Central
Abstract
Background: High blood pressure, once rare, is rapidly becoming a major public health burden in
sub-Saharan/Africa. It is unclear whether this is reflected in children. The main purpose of this
study was to assess blood pressure patterns among rural, semi-urban, and urban children and to
determine the association of blood pressure with locality and body mass index (BMI) in this sub Saharan
Africa setting.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among school children aged 8–16 years in the
Ashanti region of Ghana (West-Africa). There were 1277 children in the study (616 boys and 661
females). Of these 214 were from rural, 296 from semi-urban and 767 from urban settings.
Results: Blood pressure increased with increasing age in rural, semi-urban and urban areas, and in
both boys and girls. The rural boys had a lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure than semi urban
boys (104.7/62.3 vs. 109.2/66.5; p < 0.001) and lower systolic blood pressure than urban boys
(104.7 vs. 107.6; p < 0.01). Girls had a higher blood pressure than boys (109.1/66.7 vs. 107.5/63.8;
p < 0.01). With the exception of a lower diastolic blood pressure amongst rural girls, no differences
were found between rural girls (107.4/64.4) and semi-urban girls (108.0/66.1) and urban girls
(109.8/67.5). In multiple linear regression analysis, locality and BMI were independently associated
with blood pressure in both boys and girls.
Conclusion: These findings underscore the urgent need for public health measures to prevent
increasing blood pressure and its sequelae from becoming another public health burden. More
work on blood pressure in children in sub-Saharan African and other developing countries is
needed to prevent high blood pressure from becoming a major burden in many of these countries.
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This article is published by BioMed Central and is also available at http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/114
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1Institute of Health Policy and Management, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2Institute for Medical Technology Assessment, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands and 3School of Medical Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Ghana, Kumasi, Ghana