Two members of EPI-PHARE have been awarded by the American Heart Association the prize for the best article on population data published in the journal Hypertension in 2021.

Using data from the French National Health Data System (SNDS) in more than 2 million hypertensive patients, the study showed that patients treated with aenzyme-converting enzyme inhibitors and sartans had a lower risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 of about 25% and 15%, respectively, compared with those treated with calcium channel blockers. These results overturned the initial assumption that patients treated with sartans were at greater risk of severe COVID-19, and were subsequently confirmed by other studies.