Cardiac Rehabilitation for Hypertension Assessment and Control: Report From the International Council of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation.

The burden of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) has been steadily rising over the past decades, with an over 40% increase globally. Efforts in primary and secondary prevention of CVD and its associated risk factors are required to mitigate this epidemic. One of the chief risk factors contributing to the CVD burden is hypertension, as it is a significant contributor to CVD-related morbidity and mortality. Specifically, hypertension is estimated to cause 7.5 million deaths, which is approximately 12.8% of total mortality, making it one of the top 10 leading causes for death across the world. Moreover, hypertension accounts for nearly 57 million disability-adjusted life years or 3.7% of total disabilityadjusted life years. Given this high rate of morbidity, secondary prevention to control hypertension is tantamount. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is a comprehensive model of care for the secondary prevention and control of CVD, including blood pressure (BP) assessment and delivery of interventions for hypertension management. The International Council of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (ICCPR) is concerned with promoting greater delivery of CR, which, in turn, will promote greater assessment and control of BP. The ICCPR has recently partnered formally with the World Hypertension League (WHL). Consequently, the WHL has official representation on the ICCPR council and actively contributes to our primary initiatives. ICCPR is collaborating on WHL’s recent dietary salt initiative and has official representation on the expert committee to develop a call to action. Outlined herein are the aims of the ICCPR, a description of CR in a global context, and ICCPR’s current efforts, with a particular focus on hypertension management.