Portfolio Caption Sheet

Project Name: Hypertension Paper

Project Date: 4/18/2021
Your Name: Kailynn Blanchard
Project Description:
For my Health Education and Promotion Topic Report, I choose Hypertension and I had to
provide a brief description of this health topic and look at factors that goes into Hypertension
such as genetics, demographic, environmental, etc. and how it affects individuals through
those factors.
Competency:
Competency 1.4: Examine Relationships among Behavioral, Environmental and Genetic Factors That
Enhance or Compromise Athletic Training, Fitness/Health, and/or Recreation/Leisure
Description of what you learned:
For my Health Promotion Hypertension Paper, I learned on how to tie together all the
gathered information about the different factors that affects the health of individuals with this
disease. By examining location, race, and gender, it can be crucial for the development of
treatment regarding those areas and finding ways to reduce the cases of hypertensions
throughout the country.
Abstract #1

Summary of Data

Reading and understanding that nearly half of the adult population is affected by hypertension makes it

loud and clear that this problem is pretty big. Hypertension does not target just one specific race-ethnicity but

diving a little deeper and seeing how it affects a certain demographic can be helpful for future studies. One

research article highlights how hypertension is represented within the African American population and in

inner-city communities. Waldron et al. (2019) focused their research within the Newark, New Jersey area in

which they evaluated patients in the emergency department for a 3-year period from June 2013 to May 2016.

During the respective study, they looked at the subtypes of hypertension: hypertensive crisis and hypertensive

emergency. Hypertensive crisis is a severe increase in blood pressure that can lead to a stroke. Systolic pressure

of 180 mmHg or higher and a diastolic pressure of 120 mmHg or higher can lead to damaged blood vessels.
Hypertensive emergency is high blood pressure with potential life-threatening symptoms and signs indicative of

acute impairment of one or more organ systems. Out of the 15,632 patients’ cases that they reviewed, they

found that 90% of the study population were African American. As for the prevalence of the subtypes of

hypertension, they found that HTN crisis was 11.4% and HTN emergency was 3.2% (Waldron et al, 2019).

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention provided excellent statistical data on the rates in which

high blood pressure varies by sex and race and also the geographical aspect behind it. When it comes to

maintaining control over their high blood pressure, 47% of men have high blood pressure than women, who

accounts for 43%. When it comes to race, similar to what the journal article above mentioned, it is more

common in non-Hispanic black adults, at 54%. Non-Hispanic white adults are second at 46% and non-Hispanic

Asian adults finish third with 39% and Hispanic adults are fourth at 36%. When it come to the ability to

properly control high blood pressure via medication, white adults have a higher percentage than African

Americans, Hispanic, and Asian adults.

Looking at a geographical breakdown on the prevalence of hypertension in 2017, it was clear that the

southern United States leads the nation with their age adjusted prevalence ranging between the respective 30.1-

31.9% and 32.0-38.6%. Areas in which display a low prevalence percentage are the West Coast, Upper East

Coast and Northern States. Their prevalence levels are within 24.3-27.2%. (CDC).

Principle Gaps in the Knowledge of Problem

When reviewing the resources for this topic, there were some principal gaps that were present in which

can render to the creation of intriguing questions. The biggest question in which I thought after reading one of

my review articles was, “Why are African Americans at more of a risk to develop hypertension than other

races?”. I wonder if it is some genetic make-up within us that leads to that percentage. Or if it has something to

do with our lifestyle and/or geographic destination. Based off of the census website, the 10 most common states

in which 60% of African American resides are: New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North

Caroline, Maryland, Michigan, and Louisiana. Out of those 10 states, five of them have more than 2 million

African American residing there: New York, Californian, Texas, Florida, and Georgia. (Census 2020). Taking

this information and comparing it to what the CDC website presented regarding the geographic location of
where hypertension is most common, it is interesting to see a link between those true southern states, especially

Louisiana and Georgia. Seeing a correlation between African Americans and their desired states of residency,

in which is predominately an African American population, and seeing that in those states, they have a higher

percentage of being diagnosed with hypertension.