Figure 1. Relative risks (RRs) for diseases associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP).

The figure shows RRs for 10 mmHg higher usual SBP. The figure shows RRs converted to comparable age group as described in Methods. See Table S1 for RRs in original age groups from each study. RRs for rheumatic heart disease and inflammatory heart disease apply only to deaths and those for other outcomes to deaths and incidence. The percentage of variation in the pooled estimates that is due to statistical heterogeneity was evaluated using the I² statistic for each age group and outcome. Of all outcomes and age groups analyzed, only two age groups in the pooled analysis for hemorrhagic stroke had non-zero I² values: I² = 44.4% for ages 35–44 years, and I² = 24.3% for ages 55–64 years.