Official Site of The State of New Jersey
Cardiovascular Disease - High Blood Pressure
Summary Indicator Report Data View Options
Cardiovascular Disease - High Blood Pressure by County, New Jersey, 2015, 2017, 2021
Why Is This Important?
High blood pressure is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (i.e., heart attack, heart failure, or stroke) and kidney failure. For adults who have high blood pressure, controlling it through lifestyle modifications (i.e., diet and exercise) as well as medications can help reduce the likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease or kidney failure.
Definition
Estimated percentage of New Jersey adults (age 18 and over) who have ever been told by a doctor, nurse or other health professional that they have high blood pressure. The high blood pressure question is administered only in odd-numbered years. All prevalence estimates are age-adjusted to the U.S. 2000 standard population (except for rates by age group).
Data Source
Behavioral Risk Factor Survey, Center for Health Statistics, New Jersey Department of Health(http://www.nj.gov/health/chs/njbrfs/)
How the Measure is Calculated
| Numerator: | Number of adults from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System who have ever been told they have high blood pressure by a health professional. |
| Denominator: | Number of survey respondents excluding those with missing, "Don't know/Not sure," and "Refused" responses. |
How Are We Doing?
In 2021, the percentage of New Jersey adults who have ever been told they have high blood pressure by a health professional was 27.8%. Blacks (35.3%) have highest prevalence of diagnosed high blood pressure compared to Whites (27.7%), Hispanics (26.6%) and Asians (22.2%) in the state.
What Is Being Done?
The New Jersey Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Program (NJHDSPP) seeks to reduce the burden of heart disease and stroke for New Jersey residents through evidence-based systems level interventions that support prevention, detection and control of high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart disease and stroke. Since 2013, HDSPP has partnered with 22 health systems including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Regional Planning Collaboratives (RPCs), and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to: *Increase electronic health records (EHR) adoption *Increase the use of health information technology and team based care *Changing roles and adding new positions to enhance care coordination teams *Improve control measures for high blood pressure *Implement Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDS) *Incorporating clinical guidelines that are a part of a decision support system *Improving usability and applicability of alerts, order sets, registries, and other clinical data available through electronic health records (EHRs) and health information exchanges (HIEs) *Promote awareness High Blood Pressure among patients with the condition
Evidence-based Practices
The NJHDSPP reduces the burden of high blood pressure on New Jersey residents by implementing health systems interventions that increase awareness, promote reporting of clinical quality measures (NQF 18), and increase quality improvement processes such as Team Based Care (TBC). These practices are recommended by the Community Guide for Preventive Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as effective, evidence based practices to reduce the burden of high blood pressure.