Worldwide Increase in Diagnosis of Hypertension in Children

Investigators from multiple institutions conducted a meta-analysis to determine estimates of the global prevalence of hypertension in children. The authors identified published studies that provided numerical prevalence estimates of hypertension, prehypertension, and stage 1 or stage 2 hypertension in children <19 years old. Only studies that defined hypertension using distribution curves of systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP, respectively) based on age, height, and sex with predefined percentile thresholds were included in the meta-analysis. Prehypertension was defined as SBP and/or DBP ≥90^th percentile and <95^th percentile; hypertension as SBP and/or DBP ≥95^th percentile; stage 1 hypertension as SBP and/or DBP ≥95 …