Globally, the overall prevalence of hypertension in children and adolescents aged 19 years or younger is 4%, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis published in JAMA Pediatrics.

“From the public health perspective, reliable estimates of the prevalence of childhood hypertension serve as the basis for adequate prevention and treatment, as well as evidence-based health resource allocation and policymaking,” Peige Song, PhD, a former PhD student at the Centre for Global Health Research in the University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, and colleagues wrote. “Despite the existence of a large volume of studies that have assessed the prevalence of hypertension in children and adolescents, to our knowledge, the prevalence estimates of childhood hypertension have rarely been synthesized at the global level.”