Missed opportunities for hypertension screening of older people in the Philippines: cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative individual-level data.

Background: Guidelines recommend routine blood pressure measurement at health facilities. We estimated the potential for opportunistic screening for hypertension at health facilities to change the level and distribution of diagnosed hypertension in the older population of the Philippines.

Methods: We used a representative, nationwide sample of Filipinos aged 60 years and older and classified respondents as a) if they had high (≥140/90 mm Hg) blood pressure (BP) or were taking BP medication, b) if told have high BP by a doctor, and c) a if they were hypertensive, undiagnosed and had an outpatient visit to a health facility in the past 12 months.