Prevalence Rate of Diabetes and Hypertension in Disaster-Exposed Populations: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCD) such as hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM) have been one of the major health problems in the world. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence rate of DM and HTN following natural and man-made disasters that impose significant economic and psychological burdens on human communities.METHODS: In this systematic and meta-analysis review, all crosssectional studies that at least one of their objectives was to measure the prevalence of HTN or DM in individuals affected by natural and man-made disasters were included. Literature review was done in international databases including PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science, from database inception to February 17, 2019. The extracted data included the bibliographic characteristics of the article, the age of the participants, number of participants, gender, sample size, outcome, duration of the follow-up, and prevalence of DM and HTN. Data were analyzed by STATA software (version11) and random effect method and the I2 index were used to investigate heterogeneity between the articles.RESULTS: A total of 16 articles met the inclusion criteria. Based on the quality assessment, 11 papers were categorized as moderate and 5 paper were categorized as high quality. The prevalence of HTN and DM in disaster-exposed populations were 47.35 (CI 95%: 38.53-56.17) and 13.56 (CI 95%: 10.12-17.01), respectively.CONCLUSION: The results of this study show a high prevalence of HTN and DM in survivors of major disasters, which is higher in comparison to the general population.

The COVID-19 pandemic and temporal change in metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease: a natural experiment within the HELIUS study

“…Elevated BP due to the pandemic is in line with prior research on social disruption following natural disasters [4,6-8]. Moreover, in line with prior research [8], we found evidence that the pandemic led to increased glycaemia, in particular FPG among women. Findings concerning HbA1c seem contradictory, as the exposed group had slightly more favourable changes in HbA1c than the control group, despite the less favourable changes in FPG.…”

“…In particular, our findings suggest the pandemic negatively affected BP and glycaemia. Elevated BP due to the pandemic is in line with prior research on social disruption following natural disasters [4,[6][7][8]. Moreover, in line with prior research [8], we found evidence that the pandemic led to increased glycaemia, in particular FPG among women.…”

“…However, major disruptions of the social or physical environment, e.g., after natural disasters, may affect cardiometabolic health. Natural disasters have been linked to deteriorations in metabolic CVD risk factors such as hypertension (HT), Diabetes Mellitus type 2 (DM) and hypercholesterolemia [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Besides sex differences in COVID-19, the restrictive measures are known to affect women and men differently socially, behaviourally, and psychologically, for example concerning women's and men's work, caregiving, psychological distress and health behaviour, such as diets and exercise [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Comparative risk assessment of non-communicable diseases by evacuation scenario– a retrospective study in the 7 years following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident

“…We performed multiple sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our findings. First, we considered an augmented inverse-probability weighting (AIPW) method originally proposed in the missing data literature, which extends the IPW method by adding a regression term as an augmentation [ 48 , 49 , 50 ]. Second, the IPW analysis with the 2017 data only compares the disease risks between the evacuation scenarios as of 2017, and does not assess any earlier point in time.…”

Flood and Hypertension: A Systematic Review

“…All countries around the world spend significant financial resources on diagnosing, treating and rehabbing the effects of high blood pressure as one of the most common NCDs (16). Due to the conditions of the disaster-stricken community, trauma and infectious diseases are usually given priority, and non-communicable diseases such as hypertension are usually ignored in the early stages (17).…”