A Woman's Journey: Hypertension

Brought to you by Johns Hopkins Medicine – A Woman’s Journey on Hopkins at Home 

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 High blood pressure can be life threatening, and it is ubiquitous in the U.S., affecting 108 million American adults. The American Heart Association estimates that among African Americans, high blood pressure often develops early in life, and that more than 40% of non-Hispanic African American men and women have high blood pressure. Cardiovascular nurse epidemiologist Yvonne Commodore-Mensah talks about the causes of hypertension in various populations, new guidelines and how to get your blood pressure under control.  

Yvonne Commodore-Mensah, Ph.D. '14, M.H.S. '19, R.N. is a cardiovascular nurse epidemiologist whose current program of research seeks to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease risk among Africans locally (United States) and globally (sub-Saharan Africa) through community-engaged research.  Her research expertise includes immigrant health, global health,  cardiovascular disease epidemiology, and social determinants of health. She is the principal investigator of the ADHINCRA Study, a randomized control trial to address hypertension control in Ghana and the African Immigrant Health Study, which is examining the health of African immigrants in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. She is a fellow of the American Heart Association and was awarded the American Heart Association (AHA) Martha N. Hill New Investigator Award in 2016. She is a fellow and board member of the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association. She serves on the writing committee of the 2019 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Clinical Performance and Quality Measures for Adults with High Blood Pressure. She is chief executive officer of the African Research Academies for Women, a non-profit which seeks to address gender disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in Africa.