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Department of Biomedical Informatics

School of Medicine

pedbp Web Application: Visualize Pediatric Blood Pressure Percentiles (BPPs)

Step-by-step guide to using the pedbp ShinyApp to explore blood pressure by age, sex and height.

minute read

by David DeBonis | April 6, 2026
background is CU gold on left and beige on right. There is a smartphone with the pedbp web app pulled up centered in the page, with a grid pattern sticking out from behind it. There is image of clinician taking Childs blood pressure in top right, and a clinician on a computer in bottom left.

You may have learned the simple rule that healthy blood pressure is “under 120/80 mm Hg,” but pediatric blood pressure is far more nuanced. Clinicians and researchers rely on pediatric blood pressure percentiles (BPPs) to diagnose conditions such as hypertension and shock, yet existing percentile charts can be hard to access, inconsistent or incomplete.

To address these challenges, researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz (CU Anschutz) developed pedbp, a set of tools designed to standardize and clarify pediatric blood pressure percentiles using key variables like age, sex and height. Leading the effort is Peter DeWitt, PhD, assistant research professor of biomedical informatics.

The pedbp shinyapp is a user-friendly implementation of the pedbp package that is formatted as a web application. This tool allows clinicians, researchers or anyone else to explore blood pressure percentiles without needing to write code or download software. Read on to see how to use the pedbp shinyapp to map and visualize pediatric blood pressure percentiles.

This is an instructional installment highlighting an application of the pedbp tool for pediatric blood pressure. This is part of our ongoing series spotlighting the DBMI Wall of Software, an interactive online hub showcasing the latest open-source software and data tools for researchers. View the Wall of Software here.

To learn more about pedbp and its applications, we sat down with DeWitt.

  1. Navigate to the pedbp shinyapp homepage, and in the navigation (three lines) select Blood Pressure.

    cropped screenshot of pedbp shinyapp webpage with header text that reads "Pediatrics Blood Pressure and Growth Standard Distributions" and "Pediatric Blood Pressure Distributions." Body text is listed below it. In the left column navigation, there is an orange box around "Blood Pressure" link, indicating to click there.

     

  2. The Source dropdown allows you to select the source study for which percentile ranges will be used in the calculations.

    Citations for these sources can be found in the References section of the pedbp shinyapp homepage.

    cropped screenshot of the pedbp tool webpage. title says "Pediatric Blood Pressure" and user has selected Source dropdown, where the user chooses the study from which data is sourced. martin2022 is selected by default.

     

  3. Select the child’s Age.

    The age dropdown allows users to select age by either months or years, making it easier to work with infant datasets.

    cropped screenshot of the pedbp tool webpage. user has selected Age dropdown, which offers two options: months, or years. Below drop-down for Sex and Height are seen in the image.

     

  4. Select the child’s Sex and Height.

    Height can be left as Unknown, or it can be selected as Known and adjusted based on centimeters (cm), inches or percentile range.

    screenshot of a user on the pedbp web application. screenshot depicts three fields: Age, Sex and Height. Age has units drop-down (e.g. months vs. years) as well as a range slider.

     

  5. Select the child’s Systolic Blood Pressure and Diastolic Blood Pressure.

    The dropdown can be used to enter blood pressure values either by Millimeters of Mercury (mmHg) or percentile range.

    screenshot of a user on the pedbp web application. screenshot depicts two fields: Systolic Blood Pressure and Diastolic Blood Pressure. Both fields have a dropdown to select units (e.g. mmHg), as well as a range slider.

     

  6. View the outputs and charts. Outputs are automatically adjusted as variable selections are made.

    The blood pressure of the child will be shown as a small black dot, which is illustrated against the percentile ranges (based on the initial Source selection). Users can view charts that demonstrate the percentiles for both Systolic and Diastolic blood pressure, or they can view a Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF).

    screenshot of Blood Pressure Percentiles graph as an output of the pedbp tool. Title reads "Output" and "Blood Pressure by Age with Percentiles." Two charts depict systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. Orange arrows point to black dots that depict the user's input for the child.

    screenshot of Blood Pressure Percentiles CDF graph as an output of the pedbp tool. Title reads "Output" and "Blood Pressure by Age with Percentiles." Two charts depict systolic and diastolic blood pressure, respectively. Orange arrows point to black dots that depict the user's input for the child.

     

  7. The precise percentiles can also be viewed in the output chart.

    picture of cdf chart depicting pediatric blood pressure percentiles with orange box around tables

     

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Staff Mention

Peter DeWitt, PhD

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