Less than half (47%) of adults with hypertension are aware of their condition
One out of three adults in the world has hypertension
Hypertension is the leading risk factor for death and disability worldwide
A healthy diet and moderate exercise has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure significantly
A 10 mm Hg reduction in systolic blood pressure reduces the risk of major cardiovascular diseases by approximately 30%
Why is hypertension important?
The answer is simple, hypertension (high blood pressure) is the leading cause of mortality and disability worldwide. More than 10 million individuals die every year due to hypertension.
What do we do?
We are committed to improving global hypertension prevention, screening, diagnosis, and management. Our main activities include building the evidence and developing educational materials in collaboration with partners from many countries (see map at right).
Latest Updates
An evidence-based, streamlined approach to BP measurement in primary care
The guideline-recommended blood pressure (BP) measurement procedure takes ~10 minutes to complete, which may not be feasible in busy clinical practices, and the evidence supporting the steps in the procedure is uneven in quality. We reviewed the latest evidence from studies that quantified the impact of streamlining certain steps in the procedure on BP measurement accuracy and precision, several of which were conducted by our team.
"Estimated health impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness of taxation on unhealthy packaged foods in the Philippines: a modelling study"
On January 16, 2026, Dr. Megan E. Henry met in Manila, Philippines, with representatives from the Department of Health's Health Policy Development and Planning Bureau, Health Promotion Bureau, and Epidemiology Bureau. They discussed collaborating on inputs to update a joint publication by Nanyang Technological University, the Philippines Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI), and Johns Hopkins University in The Lancet Public Health: "Estimated health impact, cost, and cost-effectiveness of taxation on unhealthy packaged foods in the Philippines: a modelling study"
Our Team Presents New Sodium Research at ASN Nutrition 2026
At the Nutrition 2026 meeting, organized by the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) in National Harbor, Maryland, the Johns Hopkins team from Resolve to Save Lives presented four studies on sodium reduction and nutrition policy:
- Isabella Day’s work showed that key informants in Bangladesh identified salt, packaged spice mixtures and sauces, and certain traditional foods as important sources of sodium.
- Megan Henry presented findings indicating that a single-threshold nutrient profile model would perform better than the regional WHO model in identifying beverages in Bangladesh that exceed limits for sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and non-nutritive sweeteners.
- Kenny Kusnadi found that FDA voluntary sodium targets had little impact on the sodium content of new packaged foods in the U.S.
- Matti Marklund presented a modeling study suggesting that replacing regular salt in U.S. foods with potassium-enriched low-sodium salt could generate substantial health gains.
