Policy Brief On Hypertension In The African American Community

Policy Brief On Hypertension In The African American Community
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Problem statement
Hypertension or high blood pressure is defined as the push of blood against the walls of the arteries. Hypertension is measured by determining the how an individual’s heart pumps blood as well as the resistance of the arteries to blood flow. Hypertension is measured using two numbers – the diastolic and systolic pressure. Systolic comes at the top and measures pressure against arterial walls against heartbeat. Diastolic pressure measures pressure against artery wall as an individual’s heart relaxes between heart beats (Colantonio et al., 2017). High blood pressure contributes to about 500,000 deaths every year in the United states. The problem is not just limited to African American adults but also preteens who are overweight. Hypertension is attributed mainly to several risk factors including age, gender, smoking, overweight, family history, lack of exercise, obesity, excessive use of sodium (salt), type 2 diabetes, pregnancy, and certain medicine (Maraboto & Ferdinand, 2020). Among African Americans, diet and excessive weight is the major cause of the disease. In a survey conducted by American Psychological Association (APA), about 48% of African Americans are clinically obese (including 38% of men and 57% of women compared to 33% of white (32.4% men and about 32.8% women) (Asare et al., 2020).
High blood pressure affects an individual’s health and is considered the cause of key health problems such as kidney disease, stroke, blood vessel disease, and cardiovascular diseases and complications. High blood pressure is preventable and controllable and some of the key initiatives include promoting healthy lifestyle habits such as exercising and reduction of sodium intake (Forde et al., 2020). Ideally, WHO estimates that salt and sugar in processed food is the leading cause of excessive weight gain which subsequently lead to hypertension. Reducing sodium and salt intake in processed food is considered one of the ideal strategies of tacking the hypertension problem among African Americans. Reduced salt and sugar intake as well as encouraging exercising is projected to prevent over 100,000 deaths attributed to hypertension annually.
Policy Options
Adopting status quo
While there is evidence that links obesity with high blood pressure, there are no measures by the state to manage the same. Sodium and sugar intake among African American is currently above the recommended intake rate. With a mandatory regulation on intake of salt and sugar it is possible to tackle this issue (Maraboto & Ferdinand, 2020). Mandatory regulation will be much effective if the state regulates sodium and sugar percentage in processed foods. Regulations will compel food processing companies as well as importer to maintain sugar and salt to significantly low percentages, and failure to which leads to product disqualification in the market.
Ideally, the main source of obesity is processed fo...