Population Attributable Risk Fraction for Selected Chronic Diseases in India

Abstract

Background: India's current health transition stage poses a critical challenge of dealing with the unfinished agenda of communicable diseases and the steadily rising burden of noncommunicable diseases. A significant burden of chronic diseases in India is attributable to household and individual level health risk factors coupled with socioeconomic conditions. From this perspective, this article made a first time effort to assess disease burden attributable to health risk factors using crosssectional population health survey data. Methods: Population attributable fractions (PAF) were estimated for a cluster of health risk factors that include unsafe water, lack of sanitation, exposure to cooking smoke, tobacco and alcohol use, physical inactivity, and socioeconomic conditions on a set of widely prevalent chronic diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhea, diabetes, angina, and asthma. Data from the 2003 World Health Survey was used. Results: The analysis revealed evidence of a significant contribution of health risk factors to India's escalating chronic disease burden. The contribution of health risk factors toward chronic disease burden varied by residence. Conclusion: Results suggest that promotional health care based policies to deal with health risks should be a major priority in policy agenda to combat with the challenge of emerging noncommunicable disease coupled with the persistent burden of communicable diseases. Disease burden in India could be halved by effectively modifying exposure to the risk factors through promotional health care.

Morbidity Patterns and Health Care Seeking Behavior among Older Widows in India

“…On the other hand, contribution of communicable diseases to disease burden was comparatively lower. These patterns in disease prevalence were in expected direction as India is swiftly entering in the advanced phases of health transition and demographic ageing [10]. Here, the most striking concern was emerged that a greater proportion of older widows reported life-style, behavioural and environmental related morbidities compared to their counterparts, older widowers.…”

“…The policy should address the socio-economic aspects of older persons and proper attention should be given to most vulnerable groups of older persons such as older widows living in rural areas and those are socially and economically backward. Community level interventions are urgently required to spread awareness and knowledge among older persons particularly those with low socio-economic conditions [10] , [22] , [47] .…”

“…Last but not the least, there is need for a prevention strategy that may include lifestyle changes during middle age in order to curtail the incidence or at least severity of life-style related morbidities that are reported by older widows with better socio-economic status [10] , [23] , [51] .…”

“…In 2011, the share of older persons aged 60 years and above was 8.6% which placed India in ‘aged’ category as per United Nations classification [7] – [8] . Undoubtedly, the process of health transition has accelerated in India and consequently, India has to confront rapid pace of population aging [5] , [9] – [10] .…”

Gender-Specific Prevalence, Awareness, Treatment and Control of Hypertension in Adults in India: A Study for Developing Gender-Specific Public Policy from Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) Data 2017-18

“…NCDs are known to develop during middle age as a result of prolonged exposure to unhealthy lifestyle habits, including tobacco use, alcohol consumption, lack of regular physical activity, and consumption of diets high in saturated fats, sugars, and salt, such as fast foods. This type of lifestyle leads to an increase in risk factors, such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and obesity, which can act both independently and in combination with each other (15).…”