May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

May measurement month 2018: an analysis of blood pressure screening results from Mauritius.

Hypertension is a growing burden worldwide, leading to over 10 million deaths each year. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global initiative of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) aimed at raising awareness of high blood pressure (HBP) and to act as a temporary solution to the lack of screening programmes worldwide. We here provide the results of the 2018 MMM (MMM18) edition in Mauritius. This cross-sectional survey of participants aged ≥18 years was carried out in May 2018. Hypertension was defined as systolic blood pressure of at least 140 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure of at least 90 mmHg or both. Blood pressure (BP) measurement and statistical analysis followed the standard MMM protocol. Screening was conducted by Non-Communicable Diseases and Health Promotion Unit, which is under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, mainly in workplaces and community centres, in both rural and urban areas across Mauritius. Of 5471 individuals screened, after multiple imputation, 786 (14.4%) had untreated hypertension. MMM18 was the largest BP screening campaign undertaken in Mauritius. These results suggest that MMM18 is very useful to identify significant numbers of patients with raised BP