Objectives The study was to assess hypertension prevalence, awareness, management and control among university students of four races in Jilin Province, China, and to estimate the potential associations between race and hypertension.

Methods This was a cross-sectional, population-based survey with a sample of 2008 university students of four different races (yellows, blacks, whites and browns) aged from 18-47 in Jilin province, China. The participants were taken through a questionnaire, underwent a clinical examination and had the fast blood glucose tested. Chi-square tests, one-way ANOVAs, multiple and logistic regression were used.

Results The overall prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were 21.8%, 37.1%, 25.4% and 17.2%. There were significant differences of hypertension prevalence among races. Compared with yellows, blacks could be at higher risk of hypertension (OR = 1.75; 95%CI = 1.403-2.171), and whites could be at lower risk (OR = 0.57; 95%CI = 0.357-0.841). Age, BMI, DM, smoking, alcohol consumption and family history were associated with hypertension prevalence. The yellow/Chinese students had the lowest percentage of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension, and the white students had the highest percentage of awareness, treatment and control.

Conclusions Overall, the prevalence of hypertension in university students was high and the awareness and treatment was low. Among the students, race was a predictor with blacks having most tendencies for hypertension, and whites the least. Demographic and physical factors associated with high blood pressure may play an important role in the development of hypertension in this population and can be used as independent markers for increased plausibility of high blood pressure.