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Tareque MI and Saito Y

status of women in Bangladesh. It could deprive women of many necessities including
food, nutrition, health care, secure life, a respectable living, mental peace, and an
abuse-free life (Tareque, Begum, and Saito, 2014). Consequently, compared to men,
women could have more health problems as well as HTN. Therefore, to effectively
detect, prevent, and control HTN, especially unawareness of HTN and uncontrolled
HTN, older people, and women in particular, should receive special attention. This will
help to increase HFLE and quality of life.
The Sullivan method has several advantages. As a prevalence-based method it is
straightforward to apply on data from cross-sectional studies, which are less costly and
more readily available than longitudinal studies. It is less influenced by survey design
and analytic strategies than methods relying on longitudinal data. The Sullivan method
has some limitations as well. The method’s assumptions constrain the portrayal of the
expected life cycle or functional status histories of persons who are exposed to current
mortality and morbidity conditions. It does not permit recovery, once individuals
have experienced a health problem. It will yield an inaccurate portrayal of the timing
and volume of a cohort’s health experiences under conditions in which individuals
experience both the onset of health problems and recovery (Robine, Jagger, Mathers
et al., 2003). Although the Sullivan method could not detect a sudden change in health
problems, it provides fairly stable estimates as multistate life table method if there are
smooth and relatively regular changes in health problems prevalence rates over long
times (Mathers and Robine, 1997).

5 Conclusions

The most recent and reliable nationally representative data sets from the 2011 BDHS
provided insights into gender differences in HFLE and the size of the population at
risk for HTN, unawareness of HTN, and uncontrolled HTN among the Bangladeshi
people. To prevent and control HTN and to increase HFLE and quality of life, attention
should be given to women and older adults. The findings of this study shed important
light on the risk of disease and the lowering of quality of life associated with HTN in
Bangladesh. The knowledge that HTN among the Bangladeshi people, particularly
Bangladeshi women, may be the result of a number of past life-time experiences
related to education, health care, physical inactivity, life styles, unhealthy food habits,
etc., can serve as a guide for public policies in the country. Further work is needed
to determine the correlates of HTN, unawareness of HTN, and uncontrolled HTN
in Bangladesh to help policy makers and planners formulate appropriate policies
regarding HTN.
Authors’ Contributions

MI Tareque originated the study and contributed to the study design, analysis, writing
and revisions of the article. Y Saito participated in the conception and design of the
study, helped analyze data, and critically revised the article. Finally, this version was
approved by both the authors.
Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Monitoring and Evaluation to Assess and Use Results
Demographic and Health Surveys (MEASURE DHS) for providing us with the data
set. In addition, we would like to acknowledge all individuals and institutions in
Bangladesh involved in the implementation of the 2011 BDHS. An earlier version
of this paper was presented at the annual REVES meeting (The 27th International
Conference on Health Expectancy) in Singapore in June 2015. The authors would also
like to thank the participants of the REVES meeting for their thoughtful insights.

Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

International Journal of Population Studies 2017, Volume 3, Issue 1 117