OBJECTIVE1) To estimate annual direct medical costs of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke attributable to hypertension among Chinese adults aged 35-74 years in China, 2) to analyze the correlation between the hypertension awareness and hypertension treatment rate.

METHODS2003 National Health Services Survey (n = 93 018) was used to derive direct medical costs including costs for outpatient visits, physician services, inpatient stays, rehabilitation services, nurses fees, and medications. The medical costs of CHD and stroke attributable to hypertension were estimated by multiplying population attributable risk proportion by corresponding disease costs. Using 2002 National Nutrition and Health Survey (n = 148 804), the prevalence of hypertension awareness and hypertension treatment rate in 132 survey sites were calculated. Correlation was used to analyze the correlation between the two variables.

RESULTSThe direct medical costs of hypertension, CHD and stroke were 20.2, 15.7 and 24.3 billion Yuan, respectively. The medical costs attributable to hypertension were estimated at 19.1 billion Yuan (RMB), accounting for 47.7% of the total medical costs of the two chronic diseases. The prevalence of hypertension awareness is highly correlated with hypertension treatment rate (r = 0.9777, P < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONThe economic burden of CHD and stroke attributable to hypertension is very high, reaching about 50% of the total medical costs of the two diseases. The prevalence of hypertension awareness could be used as an important indicator to evaluate the effectiveness of hypertension prevention and control at community level.