How does your blood pressure measure up?

12 May 2017

People across Manchester are being encouraged to get their blood pressure tested during May Measurement Month

A worldwide screening initiative aimed at highlighting the need for increased blood pressure awareness will take place during the month of May.   

Raised blood pressure — hypertension — causes approximately 9.4 million deaths each year worldwide, and many of those who die never knew they were affected. There are no symptoms and some only find out after suffering a heart attack or stroke, or are diagnosed with something else, such as heart or kidney disease. 

The campaign, led by the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) and the World Hypertension League (WHL), aims to measure millions of people’s blood pressure to find out just how big the problem is and demonstrate to governments across the world why they need to raise public awareness and provide us all with better blood pressure screening facilities and treatment. 

Throughout May 2017, the ISH and WDL are working together with student volunteers from the Manchester Medical Research Students' Society to screen as many people as possible. 

All you have to do to get involved is be over 18 years old and ideally not have had your blood pressure recorded in the past year. But don’t worry if you have — you can still take part and it’s easy. 

Head to one of the following screenings between 9am - 12pm or 1pm - 4pm on the following dates: 

Stopford Building Foyer - 2nd-5th, 22nd-26th, 30th-31st 

University Place Ground Floor Foyer - 8th-9th, 15th-16th 

Roscoe Building Foyer - 10th-12th

Barnes Wallis Building - 17th-19th

The whole process will only take around 10-15 minutes and at the end you will leaving knowing what your blood pressure is and if you need to do anything about it. The data from Manchester will be analysed along with the results of millions of others worldwide. The results will be announced once the analysis is complete.

For more information, contact mmrssoc@gmail.com