Introduction
High blood pressure (BP) accounts for almost 8 million deaths annually worldwide, which makes up approximately 13% of total mortality in the world. According to estimates from 2000, approximately 1 billion people suffered from hypertension and it is estimated that this Non commercial use only number could rise to 1.56 billion people by 2025. Untreated and uncontrolled hypertension as a highly prevalent risk factor in cardio-vascular diseases (CVD) causes cerebrovascular stroke, myocardial infarction, and cardiac arrest, but also dementia, renal failure and blindness. As the world is undergoing a substantial demographic transition characterized by increased number of aging population, as a consequence number of people suffering from hypertension increased from 600 million in 1980 to close to 1 billion in 2008. Increased hypertension prevalence is also caused by increased prevalence of unhealthy living styles and behaviour in population, primarily unhealthy diet habits, overweight and obesity, lack of physical activity, smoking, and exposure to constant stress. All this eventually leads to increased number of CVD cases, which if not treated properly, may cause premature death and disability, in particular in working population. However, many studies throughout the world show that hypertension is not effectively treated and controlled, which continued to pose an important challenge in health systems in the world. National health systems worldwide continue to struggle with inadequate hypertension management. Routine health statistics in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBIH) show that registered hypertension rate has been steadily on the rise and so has been worrying upward trend of CVDs plaguing the FBIH with high mortality rate among working active population .Available health statistical data on morbidity rates originate from the primary health care and as such they are simply tip of an ice-berg based on the patient-demand on health care, not on real health needs of population. Health needs assessment of the population requires additional sensitive research, such as cross-sectional population surveys. With the purpose of gathering consistent data on health status and health needs of the FBIH population, two major population surveys were carried out in the past decade on representative sample of adult population. Surveys included monitoring of risk factors in development of non-communicable diseases (NDC), including hypertension. In addition to monitoring blood pressure and hypertension prevalence, objective of the survey was also to evaluate extent of hypertension detection, treatment, and control in the FBIH, as well as to highlight changes in the 10-year trend.