Apple Watch May Not Identify All Individuals With Undiagnosed Hypertension

FRIDAY, Feb. 20, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The Apple Watch hypertension notification feature can identify adults with undiagnosed hypertension; however, a considerable proportion of individuals with hypertension may receive no alert, according to a study published online Feb. 9 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Jordana B. Cohen, M.D., from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and colleagues examined the potential impact of the Apple Watch hypertension notification feature, which uses photoplethysmography signals to notify users they may have hypertension without using a blood pressure cuff, among U.S. adults without diagnosed hypertension. Data were analyzed from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2017 to 2020.

Using the estimated prevalence of hypertension in the overall eligible population, the positive and negative predictive values were 69.1 and 79.0 percent, respectively. The researchers found that among eligible individuals aged younger than 30 years, an alert increased the probability of hypertension from 0.14 to 0.47; it lowered to 0.10 in the absence of an alert. Among eligible individuals aged 60 years or older, the probability of hypertension increased from 0.45 to 0.81 with an alert and lowered to 0.34 in the absence of an alert.

“A large proportion of individuals unaware of their hypertension may be made aware,” the authors write. “However, an even larger proportion of individuals with undiagnosed hypertension could receive no alert at all. … False reassurance may discourage some individuals with undiagnosed hypertension from obtaining appropriate screening or engaging with the health care system, resulting in missed opportunities for early detection and treatment.”

Several authors disclosed funding from educational or institutional grants.

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