Nearly half of American adults have high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, and one in seven is not aware of having at least one of these chronic conditions, all of which are associated with heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, says a new CDC study.

The new study was conducted by researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) s National Center for Health Statistics and was published online this week.

For the study the authors analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999-2006.

Their key findings reveal that:

  • 45 per cent of US adults had at least one of three diagnosed or undiagnosed chronic conditions: hypertension (high blood pressure), hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), or diabetes.13 per cent (one in eight), had two of them, and 3 per cent had all three.

  • 15 per cent (nearly one in seven) of US adults had one or more of these conditions undiagnosed.

  • Non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to have at least one of the three conditions (diagnosed or undiagnosed), than non-Hispanic whites and Mexican-Americans.

  • Non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites were more likely to have both diagnosed or undiagnosed hypertension and hyper-cholesterolemia than Mexican-Americans.

  • Non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican-Americans were more likely to have both diagnosed or undiagnosed hypertension and diabetes than non-Hispanic whites.

The authors said that while race and ethnic differences in health care and chronic diseases are well documented, the co-occurrence of these three conditions by race and ethnicity is not.

One of the two overarching goals of the US government’s both Healthy People 2010 and 2020 target, is to eliminate health disparities among different segments of the population.

The authors concluded that their findings stress the need for more research to find out the reasons for the race and ethnicity disparities they found and identify modifiable factors to reduce them.

“Hypertension, High Serum Total Cholesterol, and Diabetes: Racial and Ethnic Prevalence Differences in U.S. Adults, 1999-2006.”
Fryar CD, Hirsch R, Eberhardt MS, Yoon SS, Wright JD.
NCHS Data Brief, Number 36, April 2010.
Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

Source: CDC.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD