Hypertension and epidemiological factors among tribal labour population in Gujarat.

A cross sectional study was carried out in 2005 to find out the magnitude of hypertension among 154 tribal labourers of Gujarat belonging to Naika, Rathwa and Damor tribes. WHO classification of hypertension was taken as operational criteria and data was collected in pre-designed, pretested schedule. Blood pressure measurement was done twice on each subject using mercury sphygmomanometer. Overall magnitude of hypertension was found to be 16.9%, and only smoking was found to have significantly associated with it.