Health and Economic Benefits of High Blood Pressure Interventions

For Everyone

At a glance

  • Half of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, or hypertension, a preventable and treatable risk factor for heart disease and stroke.
  • High blood pressure is a common health condition, costing billions each year.
  • CDC supports the use of evidence-based interventions, including self-measured blood pressure monitoring with clinical support, team-based care, community health workers, and pharmacy-based interventions to help people manage their blood pressure.
Person measuring blood pressure with home blood pressure monitoring device

High blood pressure in the United States

High blood pressure, defined as having a blood pressure reading of 130/80 mm Hg or higher, is a dangerous condition and key risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Healthy lifestyle behaviors—like eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in sodium and being physically active—can help prevent high blood pressure.

Quick facts

  • Nearly half of U.S. adults (119.9 million) have high blood pressure, and most of them (94.9 million) are recommended lifestyle modifications and prescription medication.1
  • 3 in 4 adults with high blood pressure (92.9 million) do not have it under control, defined as less than 130/80 mm Hg.1
  • High blood pressure prevalence varies by race and ethnicity. Over half (59.6%) of non-Hispanic Black adults, 42.7% of non-Hispanic Asian adults, 44.9% of Hispanic adults, and 44.8% of non-Hispanic White adults in the United States have high blood pressure.2
  • About 78.3% of non-Hispanic Black adults, 77.5% of non-Hispanic White adults, 76.3% of Hispanic adults, and 74.2% of non-Hispanic Asian adults with high blood pressure do not have it under control.2
  • In 2024, high blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause of over 680,000 deaths in the United States.3

The high cost of high blood pressure

  • Annual costs associated with high blood pressure were an estimated $219 billion in the United States in 2019.4
  • Annual medical costs for people with high blood pressure were $2,759 higher than for people without high blood pressure in 2019.4

Strategies that work

CDC supports state, local, tribal, and territorial heart disease and stroke prevention programs that help millions of Americans control their high blood pressure and reduce other risk factors for heart disease and stroke. The agency promotes strategies and policies that encourage healthy lifestyles and behaviors, healthy environments and communities, and access to early and affordable detection and treatment of high blood pressure. These evidence-based strategies help save lives and reduce health care costs. The strategies include:

  • Expanding the use of team-based care, which means health care professionals work with pharmacists, community health workers, and other health professionals to manage patients' high blood pressure.56
  • Expanding the use of community health workers to connect people with the services and lifestyle programs they need to reduce their blood pressure.7
  • Increasing the use of self-measured blood pressure monitoring (SMBP) with clinical support, where people with high blood pressure check their own blood pressure regularly and share this information with their health care provider. 89

Improvements in high blood pressure control could save lives and billions in health care costs every year. For example:

  • Team-based care that includes a pharmacist could prevent up to 91,900 heart attacks, 139,000 strokes, and 115,400 deaths from cardiovascular disease over 5 years among U.S. adults with uncontrolled high blood pressure. Medicare could save up to $900 million over 5 years with this intervention.6
  • Adopting SMBP programs could reduce heart attacks by 4.9% and strokes by 3.8%, and could generate $7,794 average savings in health care costs per person over 20 years.10
  • Using SMBP to diagnose high blood pressure, select treatments, and adjust medications is cost-effective for private insurers as well, saving about $254 per insured customer.11

For more information about strategies to prevent heart disease and stroke, see Best Practices for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programs and Hypertension Control Change Package for Clinicians.

Benefits of using proven strategies

Many effective strategies to manage high blood pressure are a good value in terms of cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained.* For example:

  • Team-based care to improve blood pressure control has a median cost of $16,309A per QALY gained.512
  • The use of community health workers, as part of a team, has a median estimated cost of $20,642A per QALY gained.712
  • When used with other approaches, self-measured blood pressure monitoring has a median cost of $3,305 to $12,749A per QALY gained.812

* Public health interventions that cost less than $50,000 per QALY are widely considered cost-effective.

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Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP)
  1. Costs were measured in 2023 U.S. dollars.
  1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Estimated hypertension prevalence, treatment and control among US adults. Reviewed May 2023. Accessed May 3, 2024. https://millionhearts.hhs.gov/data-reports/hypertension-prevalence.html
  2. Hardy ST, Jaeger BC, Foti K, Ghazi L, Wozniak G, Muntner P. Trends in Blood Pressure Control among US Adults With Hypertension, 2013–2014 to 2021–2023. Am J Hypertens. 2025;38(2):120-128. doi:10.1093/ajh/hpae141
  3. National Center for Health Statistics. Multiple Cause of Death 2018–2024 on CDC WONDER Database. Accessed February 24, 2026. https://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd.html
  4. Wang Y, Lee JS, Pollack LM, Kumar A, Honeycutt S, Luo F. Health care expenditures and use associated with hypertension among U.S. adults. Am J Prev Med. 2024;67(6):820–831.
  5. Community Preventive Services Task Force. Cardiovascular disease prevention and control: team-based care to improve blood pressure control. Accessed November 15, 2023. https://www.thecommunityguide.org/findings/heart-disease-stroke-prevention-team-based-care-improve-blood-pressure-control.html
  6. Overwyk KJ, Dehmer SP, Roy K, et al. Modeling the health and budgetary impacts of a team-based hypertension care intervention that includes pharmacists. Med Care. 2019;57(11):882–889.
  7. Community Preventive Services Task Force. Cardiovascular disease prevention and control: interventions engaging community health workers. Accessed December 16, 2019. https://www.thecommunityguide.org/findings/heart-disease-stroke-prevention-interventions-engaging-community-health-workers.html
  8. Community Preventive Services Task Force. Cardiovascular disease prevention and control: self-measured blood pressure monitoring interventions for improved blood pressure control—when combined with additional support. Accessed December 16, 2019. https://www.thecommunityguide.org/findings/heart-disease-stroke-prevention-self-measured-blood-pressure-with-additional-support.html
  9. Arrieta A, Woods J, Qiao N, Jay S. Cost-benefit analysis of home blood pressure monitoring in hypertension diagnosis and treatment: an insurer perspective. Hypertension. 2014;64:891–896.
  10. Li Y, Zhang D, Li W, et al. The health and economic impact of expanding home blood pressure monitoring. Am J Prev Med. 2023;65(5):775–782.
  11. Arrieta A, Woods J, Wozniak G, Tsipas S, Rakotz M, Jay S. Return on investment of self-measured blood pressure is associated with its use in preventing false diagnoses, not monitoring hypertension. PLoS One. 2021;16(6):e0252701. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252701.
  12. U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Table 2.5.4. Price Indexes for Personal Consumption Expenditures by Function. Accessed October 23, 2024.