Considerations regarding the cost and effectiveness of public and patient education programmes.

For nearly two decades, the National High Blood Pressure Education Programme has administered a programme of public, patient, and professional education in an effort to reduce uncontrolled hypertension, an important public health problem in the USA. A broad network has been established and many partners have joined forces to form the NHBPEP. During the tenure of the programme, awareness, treatment, and control rates for high BP have increased dramatically, and this has been associated with a nearly 57% reduction in age adjusted stroke mortality. In 1988, stroke cost this nation about $23.3 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. Much of this is attributed to uncontrolled hypertension. It seems likely that controlling hypertension saved nearly $1.5 billion in direct and indirect costs for stroke in one year alone. This is in addition to the other health care costs attributed to coronary heart disease that have been reduced as a result of treating high BP. A portion of this may be related to the NHBPEP.