【Aging, safety net and fiscal crisis in Japan】No.166: Percentage of adults with hypertension

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare conducts an annual survey on the systolic blood pressure of people aged 20 years and older. Figure 1 shows the percentages of adults with systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or higher. It would seem that there has hardly been any change in the decade from 2007 to 2017; however, it does increase along with age.

Figure 2 shows the percentages calculated by removing the influence of age from the data in Figure 1. These results indicate that the percentage of adults with hypertension is decreasing in both males and females. As shown in Table 1, the national medical expenses for hypertension are also decreasing.

Figure 1: Percentages of adults with systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or more (before adjusting for the influence of age)

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Figure 2: Percentage of adults with systolic blood pressure of 140 mmHg or more (after adjusting for the influence of age)

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Table 1: Medical expenses for hypertension

Source: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare