Background and Abstract
Hypertension is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality not just in the United States but also in other developed and developing countries. Moreover, the cost of addressing the medical and health care needs of patients diagnosed with hypertension are often serious; and when that gets coupled with the high volume of patients being diagnosed with the disease, the effects of the problem on health, on a national level, would be magnified. Patients diagnosed with hypertension (i.e. high blood pressure) had to undergo a thorough screening procedure that may include regular blood pressure measurement, electrocardiogram (EKG, ECG), and echocardiogram procedures.
After being officially diagnosed with the disease, the patients are often recommended to engage in a lifestyle change or modification program mainly because of the fact that majority of the risk and aggravating factors of the disease can be linked to a person’s lifestyle. The most costly part of the treatment of hypertension often centers on the pharmacologic treatment (i.e. use of drugs) of the symptoms (i.e. excessively high arterial blood pressure). The classes of drugs that are often prescribed to hypertensive patients include but may not be limited to Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Inhibitors (ACE), Diuretics, Calcium Channel Blockers, Beta-Blockers, Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers (ARBs), and combination medications.
The important thing to remember about the use of medications is that they do not really address the root cause of the problem; they merely offer relief of symptoms (i.e. excessively high arterial blood pressure) so that the patient can function as if he or she does not have hypertension. The main driving factor in a typical treatment regime of a patient that has hypertension is the proposed lifestyle modification or change. The accompanying lifestyle changes or modifications address the root causes of hypertension. Coupled with the use of anti-symptom medications such as the classes of drugs just recently mentioned, the outcome of the treatment of hypertension only becomes more favorable. Hopefully, all the information indicated above shed light on the question regarding why it is important to address the present gaps in the field of hypertension research.
One of the least commonly studied risk factors that may be associated with the prevalence of hypertension is race and ethnicity. In most researches about hypertension, the patients’ lifestyle and family history of having hypertension are some of the most common factors being studied. This is why the objective of this paper was to focus on the race and ethnicity factor, specifically by conducting a comparative study of the prevalence rate of hypertension among Black and White American males. The research question that the present study aims to address would be “which among Black and White American males have been found to have higher prevalence rates of hypertension”.
In order to arrive at a conclusive answer, the authors of the present research gathered information from numerous previously published studies about the present topic and analyzed and collated the information. The general consensus in response to the research question was that hypertension appears to be more commonly diagnosed in Black American males compared to White American males.
Considering that finding from an initial review of literatures, the researchers in the present study hypothesized that Black American males would have a higher hypertension prevalence rate than White American males in their own study and analysis.
Statistics on High Blood Pressure among White and Black American Males
The prevalence rate of High Blood Pressure among African Males stand at 39% (World Health Organization, 2015)
41% of Black Americans living in the U.S. have been diagnosed with High Blood Pressure (Beckerman, 2013)
27% of White Americans living in the U.S. have been diagnosed with High Blood Pressure (Beckerman, 2013)
High Blood Pressure has been seen as the cause of 20% of African American deaths in the U.S. which is twice that of White Americans (Reif, 2007)
Methods and Analysis
For this research secondary sources of information will be used in order to arrive at a reliably conclusive answer to the research question. Secondary sources come in the form of previously published randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, case series, reports, and studies that are aimed at comparing the prevalence rate of hypertension among two specific target populations (i.e. male Black and White Americans).
Only peer reviewed and scholarly research articles will be used in the study. All previously published studies from the year 2011 up to present will be the ones that are going to be included. The lists of search engines and data bases from which the secondary sources will be obtained include: the American College of Surgeon’s National Surgical Quality Improvement, PubMed, and Ebscohost.
A simple statistical analysis focusing on the frequency of studies that point out which among the two target population groups have a higher hypertension prevalence rate will be used to interpret the data from the studies.
Results
It is expected that the results of the literature review and later on, the data analysis and interpretation of the results and findings will show that between Black and White American males, it is the Black American male population that will score a higher prevalence rate of hypertension. Instead of computing for the total number of patients that will be involved in the review (that is, adding the total number of White and Black American males in the individual studies and performing a separate analysis), the researchers will only focus on doing a frequency-based statistical analysis by comparing the number of studies that say that White American males have higher hypertension prevalence rates and those that say that it is the Black American male population that has a higher hypertension prevalence rates.
Conclusions
It will be concluded that the Black American male population or group will be correlated with a higher prevalence rate of hypertension compared to the White American male population or group. This conclusion will be supported by both the results of the literature review and the analysis of the results of previously published studies that have the same research question and framework.
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