Abstract: | There have been a good many blood pressure studies in Africa since 1929, when the result of the first community based survey in Africa was reported. These have led to certain conclusions about blood pressure levels and particular individual, social and group characteristics, such as age, sex, rural versus urban life, body build, hereditary genetic factors, race, dietary factors, social status, and stress. In Ghana, there are at least 200,000 hypertensives and the first medical reports on high blood pressure, which appeared in the early nineteen fifties, suggested that it was an important disease. App., ref. |