S-31-4: STROKE BURDEN AND HYPERTENSION IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION

Abstract

Background: Stroke is a major cause of death and disability globally, especially in particular in the Asia-Pacific region, which is home to more than 4 billion people. Among the modifiable risk factors for stroke, hypertension is the strongest, but controllable to confer large outcome benefits. Objective: To investigate the association between hypertension and stroke burden in Asia-Pacific countries. Design and Methods: Stroke burden, as defined as age- and sex-standardised disability-adjusted life-years lost (DALYs) per 100,000 persons attributed to stroke, in Asia Pacific countries was extracted from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2010. The age- and sex-standardised prevalence (%) of hypertension, defined as systolic blood pressure > 140 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure > 90 mmHg among adults aged 18 years or older, in these same countries was obtained from the World Health Organisation (WHO) database for 2015. Linear correlation was then estimated by calculating Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. Results: The stroke burdens expressed in terms of DALYs were obtained for 26 countries in the Asia Pacific region. The number of DALYs varied widely. being the lowest in Australia (398.2/100,000) and New Zealand (440/100,000), and the highest in Mongolia (4,409.8/100,000) and Indonesia (3,382.2/100,000). The prevalence of hypertension, also highly variable, was lowest in South Korea (11.0%) and Singapore (14.6%), and highest in Pakistan (30.5%) and Nepal (29.6%). There was a modest positive correlation between DALYs attributed to stroke and hypertension prevalence (r = 0.49). Approximately one-quarter of the variance in the DALYs due to stroke was predictable from the variability in hypertension prevalence across the Asia-Pacific region (r2 = 0.24). Conclusion: Both the burden of stroke and hypertension prevalence vary widely among Asian Pacific countries. There is a modest positive correlation between the two parameters. A significant amount of the variability in stroke burden is attributable to the variability in hypertension prevalence.