Global Prevalence of Childhood Hypertension on the Rise

THURSDAY, Nov. 20, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The prevalence of childhood hypertension is increasing, according to a review published online Nov. 12 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

Jiali Zhou, Ph.D., from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou, China, and colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to update global prevalence estimates of childhood hypertension. The primary outcome was prevalence of childhood hypertension assessed using repeated in-office blood pressure measurements based on at least three separate occasions (in-office approach) or using a combination of in-office and out-of-office measurements (combination approach).

Overall, 96 studies met the inclusion criteria; 83 articles with 443,914 children and adolescents across 21 countries were included for the in-office approach. The researchers found that the pooled prevalence of childhood hypertension was 4.28 percent based on 81 studies. There was an increase seen in pooled prevalence with age, peaking at age 14 years and then declining. The prevalence of childhood hypertension nearly doubled between 2000 and 2020, from 3.40 to 6.53 percent in boys and from 3.02 to 5.82 percent in girls. Fifteen articles including 12,597 children and adolescents across nine countries were included in the combination approach. Based on five articles, the pooled prevalence for sustained hypertension was 6.67 percent.

“Childhood high blood pressure is more common than previously thought, and relying solely on traditional in-office blood pressure readings likely underestimates the true prevalence or leads to misdiagnosis of hypertension in children and adolescents,” coauthor Peige Song, Ph.D., from also from the Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said in a statement.

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