Editorial Control Rates of Hypertension in North America

Despite the extensive evidence from epidemiologicalstudies showing that hypertension is a major risk factor for premature cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and from randomized clinical trials showing that this risk can be markedly reduced by antihypertensive drug therapy, hyper-tension is generally considered to be poorly managed. Sur-veys performed in the 1990s reported low rates for awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension. Since better once-daily antihypertensive drugs with less adverse effects have become available and both healthcare providers and the general public appear to place more emphasis on prevention of cardiovascular disease, one may expect these advances to translate not only into more awareness of the presence of hypertension but also into better treatment and control rates. Indeed, successive reports from National Health and Nutri-tion Examination Survey (NHANES) reported progressiv