Posted on in Uncategorized

Dominica has lowest obesity rates but high mortality from hypertension and diabetes

One of the top news stories out of Dominica in the past week is that the island has the lowest obesity rates in the region. The report was written after a (epidemiological) survey from several islands, including St. Kitts, Barbados and the British Virgin Islands. Despite not having the highest rates, 9 percent of males and 33 percent of females on Dominica are obese, according to epidemiologist Dr. Paul Ricketts.

Today, Dr. Ricketts revealed that diabetes and hypertension are among the top ten leading causes of death among Dominicans.

“This is very significant for us and if we look at it by gender, you can see that again that diabetes and hypertension are in the top five causes of death whether you are a male or female, perhaps more so significant for females. If we look at the last five years that we have data for, when we aggregate this, you will see that diabetes, in fact, is a major player in terms of the underlined cause of death coming in at number two as well as hypertension. They’re both in the top five causes of death in our country.”

In light of today’s news, one should revisit the discussion on obesity rates, after all, obesity (and being overweight) is one of many risk factors for diabetes and hypertension. Therefore, having the lowest obesity rates was something to boast about only if other factors were/are ignored.

Yes, Dominicans like others in the western world (developed and developing) are getting fatter. This is something even Dr. Ricketts admitted. In light of these public health issues, the Ministry of Health developed a strategic action plan to address these and other public health issues.

I have done other posts of encouraging active living, reducing salt intake, and general CNCDs.

The full article on obesity can be seen here and on diabetes and hypertension here.

The image above can be found at http://hairoun.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html where the blogger discusses St. Vincent and the Grenadine’s obesity weight.

Posted on in Uncategorized

Music Mondays: Romain Virgo’s “Taking you home” & Tarrus Riley’s “Start a new”

This double feature is courtesy of JamaicanDiaspora’s youtube page and address the pervasive issue of Intimate Partner Violence.

 

Various studies has shown the rise in DV across the region. Research from World Bank revealed the region having a higher rate of sexual violence than the world average. Additionally, ” Approximately 30% of women surveyed in Trinidad & Tobago experienced domestic violence; 67% of women in Suriname have experienced violence in a cohabiting relationship and 30% of adult women in Antigua & Barbuda and Barbados have experienced some form of domestic abuse.”

Violence against women, and indeed any kind of domestic violence (including against men) has no place in society.

Visit UN’s UNiTE to end violence against women to learn more: http://www.un.org/en/women/endviolence/

See also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/caribbean/news/story/2004/03/040308_domestic-violence.shtml

and CWHA: http://www.cwha.org/services.php?a=violence

Posted on in Uncategorized

HCC’s Salt Reduction Campaign

I recently read an article on how the many observation days set aside for HIV awareness across the U.S. (this week was Native American HIV Awareness Day) may indeed dilute any comprehensive message on ending the epidemic. The various observation days this week made me think of that article. Between March 20th and 27th there are World Water Day, World TB Day and the entire week devoted to Salt Awareness. Now, the latter I had not heard off until visiting the Healthy Caribbean Coalition Website.

The focus on this year’s World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) is on Salt and Men’s health. Why men’s health? Because of a UK study noting that “more men prematurely die of cardiovascular disease (CVD) than women.  CVD accounts for 29% preventable deaths in men (compared to 21% in women).  The research shows that men eat more salt than women and on average have a higher blood pressure than women, particularly at a younger age, and are less likely to have their blood pressure measured, to take action to reduce it when it is raised or to take blood pressure lowering drugs.”

And, thus, HCC’s Salt Reduction Campaign.

As an aside, I’m interested in the evaluation of such a campaign. So, if there is someone working on evaluating this campaign or other health communication/health promotion campaigns in the region, please let me know by leaving a comment below.

 

Posted on in Uncategorized

Get The Message! Support HCC’s mission on CNCDs

Healthy Caribbean Coalition want people to “Get The Message” and help combat the rise on Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases across the region. Using social media and text messaging, the campaign aims to get  Caribbean citizens to contact their Heads of Government and encourage them to attend the upcoming UN High Level meeting on chronic diseases.

Participants can join the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

This is an important fight for our region. In many countries CNCD are among the leading causes of mortality and morbidity.

More on the Coalition’s mission can be found at: http://www.healthycaribbean.org/hcc/index.html

Posted on in Uncategorized

Tobago reports lowest mortality rate across Trinidad & Tobago

http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_qvqp2653/uiconf_id/1892491

Tobago reports lowest mortality rate among five regional health authorities in the twin island nation of Trinidad & Tobago. The mortality rate was 1.8% and 2.2% in 2008 and 2009, respectively according to the Tobago Health Regional Authority (THRA). The 2008 rates for other regions were: Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) was 2.4 per cent, Northwest Regional Health Authority (NWRHA) was 2.4, North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA) was five per cent and South West Regional Health Authority (SWRHA) was 2.8 per cent. And for 2009, ERHA was 2.7 per cent, NWRHA was 2.4 per cent, NCRHA was 5.2 per cent and SWRHA was 2.9 per cent.

Despite this, Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Orville London said “that people in Tobago were not taking care of their health. ‘Too many of us are losing our legs. Too many of us suffer from hypertension, too many of us (with all due respect) are too fat and too many of us are playing with our lives.

‘I want to see more people exercising in a health centre than coming to get hypertension medicine. I want to see more people coming to get diet sheets than to get things for diabetes,’ he added. London said every individual who worked for the assembly must be subjected to criticism and scrutiny by the people of Tobago. He urged Tobagonians not to generalise or use headlines to judge categories of workers.”

The full article is available at: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2011/03/24/tobago-mortality-rate-lowest-nation