Key result
NHS Health Check attendance is linked to ~3 percentage points more missing baseline blood pressure data.
This authors' response addresses critiques regarding potential residual confounding by baseline blood pressure in the NHS Health Check mortality study cohort.
Baseline BP missingness was modestly higher among attendees; leaves open potential confounding in observational screening analyses.
We thank Professor Clark for their thoughtful critique and have investigated it directly using systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) data available in our cohort, restricted to readings recorded on or before each participant’s index date (a maximum 10-year pre-index lookback, consistent with the window used for our other continuous baseline covariates). Baseline BP was missing for 21.3% of attendees versus 17.9% of non-attendees. Some attendees’ …
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Saund et al. (2026) reported a letter. NHS Health Check attendance vs. Non-attendees was evaluated on Missing baseline blood pressure data. NHS Health Check attendees had missing baseline blood pressure data in 21.3% of cases compared to 17.9% of non-attendees.
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