OBJECTIVES: To discuss changes during the past decades in the prevalence and in the patterns of detection, treatment and control of arterial @entity101 in the general Belgian population aged 25-64 years. DESIGN: Data from two cross-sectional @entity65 risk factor surveys of the general population aged 25-64 years during the first and second halves of the 1980s (the Belgian Inter-university Research on Nutrition and Health study of 1980-1984 and the World Health Organization Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in @entity65 study of 1985-1992) are compared. @entity1 : Age-stratified and sex-stratified random samples from the general population yielded 9372 @entity1 in the former study and 4904 @entity1 in the latter. METHODS: In both studies, blood pressure measurements and other variables were collected in the same standardized way and by the same observers. RESULTS: For both sexes, overall age-standardized prevalences of @entity101 (subjects with systolic blood pressure > or = 160 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure > or = 95 mmHg or currently being administered antihypertensive drug treatment) were found to be significantly (P< 0.001) higher in the former than they were in the latter study. A significant decline in population mean systolic blood pressure values was observed for both sexes on going from the former data to the latter (falls of 6.0 and 7.3 mmHg for @entity1 and @entity1 , respectively, P< 0.01). In log-linear models, adjusted for age, a highly significant (P< 0.0001) favourable shift in the population distribution over the various categories of detection, treatment and control of @entity101 was observed. This trend exhibited a significant sex difference, however, there being a much more favourable trend for @entity1 . CONCLUSIONS: In Belgium, favourable trends in the prevalence and in the patterns of detection, treatment and control of arterial @entity101 and in the levels of systolic blood pressure were observed. The so-called 'rule of halves' is no longer valid.

Trends in the prevalence, detection, treatment and control of arterial XXXX in the Belgian adult population.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['participants', 'women', 'PARTICIPANTS', 'men'] @entity101 :: ('MESH:D006973', 'Disease') :: ['hypertension'] @entity65 :: ('MESH:D002318', 'Disease') :: ['Cardiovascular Diseases', 'cardiovascular disease']
@entity101 :: (MESH:D006973,Disease) :: ['hypertension']
