May Measurement Month – Putting pressure on global epidemic
26 Apr 2017
This May, people across Manchester are encouraged to get involved with May Measurement Month, a worldwide screening initiative aimed at highlighting the need for increased blood pressure awareness.
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 (fb.com/mmrssoc) in Manchester to screen as many people as possible. Funded by the ISH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the INSPIRE initiative of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the project is conducted in accordance with all national and international ethics guidelines.
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.
If you would like to take part, head to one of the following screenings between 9:00-12:00 or 13:00-16:00:
Location | Dates in May |
Stopford Building Foyer | 2nd-5th, 17th-19th, 22nd-26th, 30th-31st |
University Place Atrium | 8th-9th, 15th-16th |
Roscoe Building Foyer | 10th-12th |
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 in complete.
Find out more by contacting mmrssoc@gmail.com and visiting http://maymeasure.com/