Know Your Numbers Week (September 5-11, 2022)

The first Know Your Numbers Week took place in 2007 and had the theme ‘Finding The Missing Millions.’ It’s estimated that 16 million people in the U.K. have high blood pressure, but 5.3 million of them don’t know it. To address this, 2,700 ‘Pressure Stations’ were set up across the country to take pressure readings resulting in a quarter-million people being tested.

The momentum of the campaign began to grow, and 2009 saw a rise in media coverage for Know Your Numbers! Week It featured on GMTV, radio shows including BBC Radio 2 Drivetime, and national newspapers the ‘Daily Express’ and the ‘Daily Star.’ The campaign focused on the busiest areas in the U.K. which included train stations, shopping centers, and workplaces. The mission for 2012 was to know your numbers and the numbers of your partner. The campaign encouraged couples to get tested and know each other’s numbers.

With the rise of social media in 2017, the Know Your Numbers! campaign began trending online and continued to do so yearly with the hashtag #KnowYourNumbers. The posters reached over 21,000 people on Twitter and were among the most successful campaigns on the social media site. In 2019 the Know Your Numbers! campaign ‘Live Well For Longer’ reached 52,8000 people online and was featured on Arsenal football club’s website. In 2020 the campaign went virtual and encouraged people to buy or borrow a home blood pressure monitor. Additionally, the campaign created and distributed a collection of home monitoring resources. These included a guide to checking your blood pressure at home, a home-monitoring record card to track blood pressure numbers, and a video explaining how to measure blood pressure and what the numbers mean.