• Posted January 28, 2025

Noisy Settings OK For Blood Pressure Testing

Don’t worry if someone’s checking your blood pressure in a loud public place.

The reading they get is apt to be just as accurate as if the test were taking place in a quiet, less stressful environment, researchers reported in a study published Jan. 27 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“The BP readings obtained in public spaces were minimally different from BPs obtained in a private office, suggesting that public spaces are reasonable settings to screen for hypertension,” the research team led by Dr. Tammy Brady, a professor of epidemiology with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, concluded.

Current guidelines for accurate blood pressure measurement emphasize the importance of performing the test in a quiet, private setting free from distractions, researchers noted.

But the new study’s results open up the possibility of more practical and convenient mass efforts to screen for high blood pressure, in locales like shopping malls, public markets, churches, sports venues, supermarkets and business offices.

High blood pressure is a leading contributor to heart disease and stroke. Nearly 47% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure, according to the American Heart Association’s newly released 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics report.

For the study, researchers compared blood pressure readings taken at a historic public market in Baltimore, the Northeast Market, with those taken at a quiet office at Johns Hopkins.

Some who had their blood pressure taken at Northeast Market — a loud public space with regular foot traffic and conversation — also were randomly assigned to wear earplugs.

“We hypothesized that BPs measured in a loud public space would be higher than BPs measured in a quiet private space and that using earplugs in a noisy public space (to simulate a public quiet environment) would alleviate this discrepancy,” researchers said.

The public market was indeed noisier — an average 74 decibels compared to 37 decibels in the private office.

Around 70 decibels is where the risk of hearing loss starts, according to the National Council on Aging. Vacuum cleaners, washing machines and maximum sound from a TV reaches the level found at the public market, while the private office had noise levels lower than a quiet library.

But surprisingly, the noise had no affect on blood pressure readings.

Average systolic blood pressure — the pressure inside blood vessels during a heartbeat — was 128.9 in the private office, 128.3 in the market, and 129 in the market for those wearing earplugs, results show.

Likewise, average diastolic blood pressure – the pressure between heartbeats and the bottom number in a blood pressure reading — was 74.2 in the office, 75.9 in the market, and 75.7 in the market with earplugs.

A blood pressure of 120/80 is considered normal.

“In contrast to prevailing beliefs, our finding suggests that the impact of a noisy public space on BP readings is small and not clinically relevant,” the researchers concluded.

Earlier studies might have found higher blood pressure readings in noisy settings due to factors other than the hustle and bustle.

For example, people might have been more stressed because they were on the job during their blood pressure reading, or the test might have been rushed because it took place while folks were waiting at a pharmacy, researchers noted.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on understanding blood pressure readings.

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins, news release, Jan. 27, 2025