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Public health
Research
Prevalence of non-communicable disease risk factors among poor shantytown residents in Dhaka, Bangladesh: a community-based cross-sectional survey
  1. Md Khalequzzaman1,
  2. Chifa Chiang2,
  3. Sohel Reza Choudhury3,
  4. Hiroshi Yatsuya2,4,
  5. Mohammad Abdullah Al-Mamun3,
  6. Abubakr Ahmed Abdullah Al-Shoaibi2,
  7. Yoshihisa Hirakawa2,
  8. Bilqis Amin Hoque5,
  9. Syed Shariful Islam1,
  10. Akiko Matsuyama2,6,
  11. Hiroyasu Iso7,
  12. Atsuko Aoyama2
  1. 1Department of Public Health and Informatics, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  2. 2Department of Public Health and Health Systems, Nagoya University School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
  3. 3Department of Epidemiology and Research, National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  4. 4Department of Public Health, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake, Aichi, Japan
  5. 5Environment and Population Research Centre, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  6. 6Nagasaki University School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki, Japan
  7. 7Public Health Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, Japan
  1. Correspondence to Dr Atsuko Aoyama; atsukoa{at}med.nagoya-u.ac.jp

Abstract

Objectives This study aims to describe the prevalence of non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors among the urban poor in Bangladesh.

Design We conducted a community-based cross-sectional epidemiological study.

Setting The study was conducted in a shantytown in the city of Dhaka. There were 8604 households with 34 170 residents in the community. Those households were categorised into two wealth strata based on the housing structure.

Participants The study targeted residents aged 18–64 years. A total of 2986 eligible households with one eligible individual were selected by simple random sampling stratified by household wealth status. A total of 2551 residents completed the questionnaire survey, and 2009 participated in the subsequent physical and biochemical measurements.

Outcome measures A modified WHO survey instrument was used for assessing behavioural risk factors and physical and biochemical measurements, including glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c). The prevalence of NCD risk factors, such as tobacco use, fruit and vegetable intake, overweight/obesity, hypertension, diabetes (HbA1c ≥6.5%) and dyslipidaemia, was described according to household wealth status and gender differences.

Results The prevalence of current tobacco use was 60.4% in men and 23.5% in women. Most of them (90.8%) consumed more than 1 serving of fruits and vegetables per day; however, only 2.1% consumed more than 5 servings. Overweight/obesity was more common in women (39.2%) than in men (18.9%), while underweight was more common in men (21.0%) than in women (7.1%). The prevalence of hypertension was 18.6% in men and 20.7% in women. The prevalence of diabetes was 15.6% in men and 22.5% in women, which was much higher than the estimated national prevalence (7%). The prevalence of raised total cholesterol (≥190 mg/dL) was 25.7% in men and 34.0% in women.

Conclusion The study identified that tobacco use, both overweight and underweight, diabetes, hypertension and dyslipidaemia were prevalent among the urban poor in Bangladesh.

  • non-communicable diseases
  • the urban poor
  • Bangladesh
  • overweight / obesity
  • diabetes
  • dyslipidaemia

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014710

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AA, MK, SRC, HY and AM designed the study; MK, SRC, MAA, BAH and SSI conducted the field survey and data collection; CC, MK, HY, SRC and AA statistically analysed and interpreted the data; AA, MK, CC and AAAA drafted the manuscript; and HY, SRC, HI, SSI, AM and YH provided critical input on the draft. All authors approved the final draft.

    • Funding This work was supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (A, 25257505 to AA) and in part by the Sciences Research Grant for Research on Global Health Issues from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (16jk0110008h0102 to AA).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Ethics approval Bioethics Review Committee of Nagoya University School of Medicine, Japan, and Institutional Review Boards of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University and National Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Institute, Bangladesh.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement No additional data are available.