BETTER management of high blood pressure could prevent more than half a million cardiovascular deaths each year across 20 countries, according to preliminary research from the US.
The findings highlight substantial gaps in preventive healthcare and suggest that expanding access to established treatments could significantly reduce avoidable deaths across the globe.
Researchers examined six preventive services: blood pressure control, appropriate statin treatment, glucose control in people with diabetes, and screening for colorectal, breast, and cervical cancers.
A total of 20 countries were included in the research, none of which were low-income countries, and were each selected for having the highest numbers of deaths from non-communicable diseases.
Researchers used age- and sex-specific information from international sources, including the Global Burden of Disease network and World Health Organization databases.
The analysis estimated potential reductions in deaths if these services reached approximately 80% of eligible patients, matching levels achieved by high-performing US health systems.
Improved hypertension control offered the largest estimated benefit, potentially preventing 518,476 cardiovascular deaths annually.
Appropriate statin treatment could also prevent an estimated 340,682 deaths, while improved glucose control could prevent 309,520.
Additionally, increasing colorectal cancer screening coverage to 80% could also prevent an estimated 206,767 colorectal cancer deaths each year.
It should be noted that these figures represent separate modelling estimates and should not be added together as a combined total.
The study identified considerable scope to strengthen prevention in the included countries.
Only around one in five adults with hypertension in the populations studied had blood pressure controlled below 140/90 mmHg.
Scott Pilla, Associate Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, USA, highlighted particular opportunities is some countries for improvement.
He said: “While there were substantial gaps in the use of preventive healthcare services for these conditions in all countries, lower-middle-income countries had large opportunities for improvement, with low rates of hypertension control and high cholesterol management and minimal use of cancer screening tests.”
The preliminary results underline the potential impact of improving delivery of existing preventive care.
However, achieving wider coverage will require willingness and compliance from governments, as well as practical approaches to identifying eligible patients, supporting treatment, and overcoming barriers to access.
Some countries involved had limited data on preventive service use, and the analysis did not establish specific strategies for increasing uptake.
The findings were presented as a conference abstract and have not yet been published as a peer-reviewed full manuscript. They should therefore be interpreted as projected benefits under a modelled scenario, rather than observed reductions in deaths or a complete worldwide estimate.
Reference
American Heart Association. Better blood pressure control could prevent over 518,000 annual deaths worldwide. News-Medical. 11 October 2026. Available here.
Featured image: Anastasiya on AdobeStock
Each article is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License.
