Abstract

Background: Hypertension with all its complications has emerged as one of the most important noncommunicable diseases in urban as well as rural areas of India. Effective surveillance of the disease involves collection of accurate data on its prevalence and its risk factors. In rural India, there is a dearth of data on the prevalence and risk factors of Hypertension, especially of the lifestyle-related risk factors. This information is essential to plan prevention strategies.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of Hypertension in rural population of the field practice area of Cherlapally among adults above the age group of 30 years and to determine the lifestyle risk factors for Hypertension in the abovementioned study population.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was undertaken in a rural area of Nalgonda District, Telangana, India, to determine the prevalence of the disease and certain lifestyle risk factors using the World Health Organization STEP wise approach to surveillance methodology. A total of 1,500 persons from six villages drawn by multistage systematic random sampling were studied. Result: The prevalence of Hypertension was 24.5% in men, 20.7% in women, and 22.5% in total. The prevalence of prehyper- tension, stage I Hypertension, and stage II Hypertension were 26.9%, 7.5%, and 3.0%, respectively, the prevalence of Hypertension was seen to increase with age in both the genders. Association of Hypertension with tobacco use, high body mass index, abdominal obesity, high salt intake, and physical inactivity during work, transport, and leisure of study subjects was statistically highly significant. Conclusion: The need to have targeted programs to modify and reduce the impact of lifestyle risk factors has been identified as an important strategy for rural areas.