Incidence of new-onset hypertension before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: a 7-year longitudinal cohort study in a large population – BMC Medicine
Background While the augmented incidence of diabetes after COVID-19 has been widely confirmed, controversial results are available on the risk of developing hypertension during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We designed a longitudinal cohort study to analyze a closed cohort followed up over a 7-year period, i.e., 3 years before and 3 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and during 2023, when the pandemic was declared to be over. We analyzed medical records of more than 200,000 adults obtained from a cooperative of primary physicians from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2023. The main outcome was the new diagnosis of hypertension. Results We evaluated 202,163 individuals in the pre-pandemic years and 190,743 in the pandemic years, totaling 206,857 when including 2023 data. The incidence rate of new hypertension was 2.11 (95% C.I. 2.08–2.15) per 100 person-years in the years 2017–2019, increasing to 5.20 (95% C.I. 5.14–5.26) in the period 2020–2022 (RR = 2.46), and to 6.76 (95% C.I. 6.64