Hypertension Medication Use

Variable Definition

A participant is defined as hypertensive if they report that a physician told them that they had hypertension AND if they report using medications “to lower blood pressure” or control hyperten-sion prescribed by a health care provider. We include self-reported hypertension by a physician because in all surveys except Chile ENS (2010, 2017) medication use is only asked of those who answer “yes” to self-reported physician diagnosis of hypertension. Therefore, we condition on self-report to align the Chile ENS definition with the definition used in other surveys (in which medication use is only asked among those who self-report physician diagnosed hypertension). Participants are deemed not hypertensive under this definition if they report “NO” to physician diagnosed hypertension or report YES to physician diagnosed hypertension but NO to medica-tion use. This is referred to as Hypertension version 3 (V3).