This article reports on the economic, social and quality-of-life issues relating to hypertension. Although it does not claim to be a comprehensive review of the many studies available in this field, it does attempt to highlight the main areas of interest. From both a macro- and a micro-economic viewpoint, hypertension and its associated cardiovascular and renal diseases are characterized by high costs. Treatment costs can, for certain persons, represent a considerable obstacle and result in limited access to any form of care. Nevertheless, providing access to care does not necessarily ensure that an individual patient receives effective treatment. Socioeconomic factors can have varying degrees of influence on the success of any therapy, and can affect, for example, treatment compliance. An individual's awareness of his/her hypertension (the labelling effect) and the initiation of any form of long term treatment can have specific effects on quality of life; yet, in order to ensure adequate patient compliance, treatment should not impair quality of life. Evaluation of quality of life depends not only on the dimensions under investigation but also on the use of reliable, legitimate, sensitive and previously validated questionnaires. The use of such questionnaires has enabled the complex links between quality of life and blood pressure to be recognised. This in turn has led to an assessment of various drug treatments. Results would appear to indicate that hypertension and its treatment do indeed affect patients' quality of life, a factor that ultimately influences the approach to disease management and the choice of long term treatment.