Community characteristics and the risk of non-communicable diseases in Ghana

Winfred A Avogo

PLOS Global Public Health, 2023, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) are rising quickly in low- and middle- income countries. In Ghana, chronic diseases are major causes of morbidity and mortality, yet data and the evidence- base for awareness, detection, and management of NCDs are lacking. Using data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), the first national study with information on hypertension and other risk factors, we examine the correlates and community characteristics associated with the risk of hypertension, obesity, and anemia among women. We find that hypertension prevalence in Ghana was 16 percent and 17 percent were overweight/obese, while 41 percent had anemia of any form. On community characteristics, the level of poverty in a community was significantly associated with lower risks of all three NCDs, while the aggregate level of employment had higher risks. On individual characteristics, the wealth of a household, women’s educational level and urban residence were significant predictors of NCDs. We interpret the findings within the literature on neighborhood characteristics, the social gradient of health and in the context of speeding up the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDS) to reduce premature deaths by one-third by 2030.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0000692 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 00692&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0000692

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000692

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().