Risk Factors among Persons with Pre-Diabetes and Untreated Diabetes in Myanmar and Increased Burden for Non-Communicable Diseases

Citation: Risk Factors among Persons with Pre-Diabetes and Untreated Diabetes in Myanmar and Increased Burden for NonCommunicable Diseases. Journal of Environmental Science Public 6 (2022): Abstract Context: Non-Communicable diseases (NCDs) are major global public health challenges accounting for the majority of disease burden and mortality globally and in Myanmar. When uncontrolled, consequences for health can be devastating, amplified in developing countries such as Myanmar where they are also serious barriers to poverty alleviation and sustainable development. An understanding of trends in behavioural and Aims: This study aims at identifying risk factors among individuals in Myanmar at risk for NCDs. Study design: This study identifies prevalence of risk factors among pre-diabetic and untreated diabetic people using secondary data from the Myanmar STEPS 2014 survey. Methods: IBM SPSS Statistics 25 was used for data analysis and application of descriptive statistics. Results: Findings of this study indicate that out of the population diagnosed with pre-diabetes, over one third of persons are not doing enough physical exercise (39.1%), are obese or overweight (33.1%), and/or have high blood pressure (41.4%) or high cholesterol levels (47.3%). Similar trends, and higher numbers, are found for untreated diabetic people, where more than half of the population has a high BMI (55.3%), raised blood pressure (58.5%), and/or raised cholesterol (69%). Overall, 52.4% of pre-diabetic people and 71.3% of persons with untreated diabetes are living with three or more risk factors. Conclusion: Identifying high-risk individuals for diabetes and other NCDs and scaling up on interventions aimed at reducing incidence of risk factors among these populations are needed to reduce the burden of NCDs.