High Blood Pressure: prevalence

Scottish Health Survey

The Scottish Health Survey collects data on whether respondents have been told by a doctor that they have high blood pressure. Chart 1 shows the percentage of the 4,394 survey respondents in 2022 who reported doctor-diagnosed high blood pressure by age group. The estimates exclude high blood pressure that occurred only in pregnancy. The prevalence of high blood pressure rises sharply with age in both sexes, from 7% in those aged 35-44 of both sexes to 54% of over 75s. Overall, the Scottish Health Survey estimated that 22% of adults in Scotland over the age of 16 had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. More detailed statistics can be found on the Scottish Government website.

Quality and outcomes framework (QOF)

The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) (part of the 2004 general practice contract) collected data on the number of patients in each general practice who had been diagnosed with high blood pressure. These data are available for the period 2004/05 to 2015/16 when the framework was discontinued in Scotland. For Scotland as a whole the prevalence of high blood pressure based on QOF registers was 13.9% in 2015/16.

Please note: If you require the most up-to-date data available, please check the data sources directly as new data may have been published since these data pages were last updated. Although we endeavour to ensure that the data pages are kept up-to-date, there may be a time lag between new data being published and the relevant ScotPHO web pages being updated.