Epidemiology of mild hypertension

The epidemiology of mild hypertension must be understood in terms of the epidemiology of arterial pressure in general. It is the study of the influence of heredity, environment and lifestyle on the susceptibility to and the manifestations of elevated blood pressure. It involves assessing the distribution pattern of elevated arterial pressure in populations according to some characteristic which is believed to influence its occurrence: for example, age, sex, race, body habitus, family history, diet or socioeconomic status. Efforts to identify and understand the causal factors in hypertension have included descriptive studies of entire isolated populations and numerous subsets of large populations, including migrant groups, tribal units and residents of specific geographic locations.