Tackling hypertension through global collaboration

News

Posted on Tuesday 24 March 2026

Professor Simon Walker and Research Fellow Naomi Gibbs joined global health researchers at the COPE-BP Annual Meeting in Turkey, contributing to efforts to improve hypertension care in low-income urban communities.

Professor Simon Walker and Research Fellow Naomi Gibbs recently joined global health experts at the 1st Community Pharmacies for Blood Pressure Control (COPE-BP) Annual Meeting. Hosted at the end of 2025 in Istanbul, Turkey, the landmark event brought together over 30 attendees representing 12 organisations and institutes across 3 countries.

COPE-BP is a NIHR-funded research programme focused on improving hypertension care for underserved, low-income urban residents (LIURs) in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Hypertension remains a pressing public health concern in these low-income urban communities, largely due to a lack of access to quality healthcare. The COPE-BP initiative seeks to bridge this critical gap by implementing a structured intervention that encourages collaboration between community pharmacists and physicians. Ultimately, the programme aims to drastically improve the management of high blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases among vulnerable populations.

The three-day annual meeting provided a vital platform for the international consortium to convene in person, strengthening relationships, sharing insights, and building networks across borders. During the meeting, researchers examined early findings, focusing on the characteristics of community pharmacies, doctors, and the wider community, based on preliminary quantitative and qualitative results.

Simon and Naomi presented the health economics research, with analysis provided by CHE Research Fellows Fei Lu and Anqian Zhou and supported by within-country teams, to the group. It focused on how modelling can help determine the level of resources that can be invested while still ensuring an intervention remains cost-effective. This kind of insight is crucial when designing sustainable interventions.

To maintain strong community ties, the consortium reviewed progress on Community Engagement and Involvement initiatives, including the establishment of Community Advisory Panels (CAPs). This ongoing dialogue ensures that local perspectives actively inform and shape the intervention’s design and delivery.

Participants also prioritised co-creation and feasibility by planning for an upcoming trial to test the intervention’s acceptability and deliverability. As part of this collaborative effort, participants took part in a “hackathon” workshop aimed at co-creating practical, scalable training modules for community pharmacy staff.

Finally, the group addressed capacity building and geospatial mapping. Researchers discussed using spatial data to select study sites responsibly and minimise contamination risks in dense urban settings. Alongside this, they developed strategies to strengthen data management systems and build capacity at individual, institutional, and system levels.