National, regional, and global trends in systolic blood pressure since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 786 country-years and 5·4 million participants.

Data for trends in blood pressure are needed to understand the effects of its dietary, lifestyle, and pharmacological determinants; set intervention priorities; and evaluate national programmes. However, few worldwide analyses of trends in blood pressure have been done. We estimated worldwide trends in population mean systolic blood pressure (SBP).