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What percentage of Americans aged 40 to 59 have high blood pressure when a nurse actually measures it?

54.5% of Americans aged 40 to 59 have high blood pressure when a nurse actually measures it — about 55 in every 100, or 5 in 10. That is the figure published by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2018.

Where this number comes from

Survey

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

What it measured

Measured prevalence of hypertension in the NHANES 2017-2018 examination -- taken by an examiner rather than asked. The interval is derived here as the published estimate plus or minus 1.96 standard errors.

Population

U.S. adults aged 40 to 59

Year

2018

95% confidence interval

49.6% to 59.4% (derived from the published standard error)

Work of the U.S. federal government - public domain. See the source data

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