Evaluation of the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases and associated factors in low-income countries in the world health organization African Region That Participated in the World Health Survey

In this study, we examined the distribution, prevalence, and related factors of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) in low-income sub-Saharan African countries. The study is a cross-sectional study that used data from the World Health Survey (DSA) conducted between 2004 and 2006. Seven countries in the low-income country category in the African Region were included. Prevalence for insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption was 65.1%, insufficient physical activity was 6.3%, tobacco use was 12.7%, alcoholic beverage consumption was 22.7% and solid fuel use was 92.8%. Overall prevalence for angina pectoris (AP) was 19.1%, 5.8% for asthma, 1.0% for diabetes (DM), 8,6% for depression, 20.7% for arthritis and 1.9% for schizophrenia. Different NCDs were found to be associated with certain risk factors, including gender, age, education level, employment status, residential area, wealth index, tobacco use, alcoholic beverage consumption, insufficient physical activity, solid fuel use, and perceived health status. For example, increasing age, higher education, good wealth index, consumption of alcoholic beverages, and poor perceived health are associated with increased diabetes prevalence. On the other hand, female gender, increasing age, being employed, living in an urban area, low or medium wealth index, consumption of alcoholic beverages, solid fuel use and poor or moderate perceived health status were identified as factors associated with arthritis. In this study, we showed that NCD and risk factors are common in low-income sub-Saharan African countries and require major public health interventions to control them.