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Hypertension or raised blood pressure is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular diseases worldwide.\u00a0 It is therefore not surprising that the non-Latin Caribbean has the highest mortality rate due to cardiovascular disease, accounting for 418 per 100,000 population.<\/p>\n
Once more, this year, the Caribbean and the rest of the world will commemorate World Hypertension Day under the theme:\u00a0Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer<\/em>.\u00a0 CARPHA Executive Director, Dr. Joy St. John says, \u201cThe Caribbean region has the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure in the Americas ranging from a high of 27.1% to a low of 20.9%\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 She adds, \u201cIt is a cause for concern and action when in all Caribbean countries, hypertension is above the regional average for the Americas\u201d.<\/p>\n CARPHA is therefore calling on governments, civil society, private sector, academia, community-based organisations, and faith-based organisations to take a whole of society approach and work together to reduce the prevalence of hypertension by 25% by 2025 and premature mortality by a third by 2030.\u00a0 The implementation of the following measures can help the Region to achieve these goals:<\/p>\n Through combined and coordinated efforts, CARPHA is also committed to continuing its work to increase awareness of the dangers of high blood pressure and to address the risk factors associated with the disease.<\/p>\n With the support of the French Development Agency (L\u2019Agence Fran\u00e7aise de D\u00e9veloppement), CARPHA is leading the updating of a clinical guideline for the management of hypertension in primary care in the Caribbean.<\/p>\n Other CARPHA-driven policies and guidelines include\u00a0implementation of the six-point policy package to create a healthy food environment, such as, the implementation of the octagon-shaped front-of-package warning label \u201cHigh-IN\u201d model, where research has shown within and outside of the Caribbean to be the best performing system to help consumers correctly, quickly and easily identify products that contain excessive amounts of critical nutrients.<\/p>\n Additionally, CARPHA has developed a Framework for Reduction of Sodium in Caribbean populations, a major risk factor for hypertension.\u00a0 The Agency is urging individuals to make this your year to commit to healthy living, a healthy lifestyle, and getting a regular check-up.\u00a0 For those that have hypertension, CARPHA encourages you to take your treatment as instructed by your health care provider.<\/p>\n We are stronger together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hypertension or raised blood pressure is the leading risk factor for cardiovascular diseases worldwide.\u00a0 It is therefore not surprising that the non-Latin Caribbean has the highest mortality rate due to cardiovascular disease, accounting for 418 per 100,000 population. Once more,…","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":267800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,235,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-homepage-carousel","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n