Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Hypertension Risk Factors in South Africa

A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizing evidence from 11 studies with 49,058 participants across nine South African provinces. The work, authored by Martins Nweke, identifies and classifies key risk factors for hypertension, including advanced age and diabetes, and proposes a prediction model and prevention strategies.

Use Cases

• Training or validating hypertension risk prediction models based on identified factors like age, ethnicity, and diabetes.
• Informing public health policy and targeted screening programs based on the classification of priority groups.
• Conducting causal inference analysis using the mapped causal pathways and directed acyclic diagrams.
• Benchmarking new studies against the synthesized odds ratios and risk thresholds for key factors.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on 11 studies with a total of 49,058 participants, providing a substantial evidence base.
• Provides specific quantitative findings, including odds ratios (e.g., age OR: 3.67) and risk thresholds (Rw: 3.8 and 5.5).
• Follows a rigorous PRISMA 2020 methodology for systematic review and includes a registered protocol (PROSPERO ID: CRD420251026501).

Limitations

• The dataset is a 16.0 KB DOCX document, indicating a limited scope focused on the review's textual report rather than raw underlying data.
• Row count and column-level documentation for any underlying data are unknown, limiting suitability assessment for direct ML use.
• The data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the included studies from South Africa.

Provenance

Source

Martins Nweke via figshare.

Collection Method

Systematic review following PRISMA 2020, with narrative synthesis and meta-analysis of studies from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Medline, CINAHL, and SABINET.

Time Range

Temporal coverage of the included studies is not specified.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-17 13:05:09.

Geography

South Africa, with participants from nine provinces.