Various Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases among Rural and Urban Masses in a South Indian District

Abstract

This study aimed to identify thevarious risk factors of non-communicable dis­eases (NCDs) among rural and urban masses in a South Indiandistrict with the aid of WHO stepwise approach, a cross-sectional study was carried out among 431 urban and 593 rural adult people of both the genders for 18 months by simple random sampling technique.A total of 3000 masses were screened and out of them 1024 (34.13%) were recruited of which 54.68% were male and 45.31% were female. Diseases identified are diabetes and hypertension (metabolic diseases), which constituted 70.70%.NCDs among study population and this shows that diabetic and hypertensive subjects constituted 70.70% (n= 724), diabetic subjects constitute 8.78% (n= 90). Some of the other prominent NCDs relating to major systems like heart, cancer, respiratory, kidney and brain disease constituted about 7.42 (n = 76), 2.34 (n = 24), 5.56 (n = 57), 3.41 (n = 35) and 1.75% (n = 18), respectively.Behavioral risk factors, overweight, and obesity prevalence increased with age in both sites.Prevalence of obesity and overweight was foundhigh among urban masses compared to rural masses.Among both genders, prevalence of obesity and overweight, lack of physical activitieswas higher among urban and in rural alcohol consumption and smoking were more prevalent. Thus, study provided crystal clarity regarding NCDs and brought the importance of interventions, novel methods like set up of exclusive Drug, Disease and Diet (3D) clinics in both the rural and urban settingsfor mitigation of risk factors of NCDs.