Risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases in Brazilian adults: populationbased cross-sectional study

Abstract

Due to changes in the demographic, epidemiological and nutritional profiles of the population,infectious diseases are being replaced by chronic diseasesin Brazil. Public health actionsdirected toward local scenarios are being required due to the great demographic, social and economic diversity of the country. We performed a household survey aiming to identify the risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases in Brazilian adults. Representative samples were collected from 18 Brazilian state capitals between June 2002 and October 2005. We reported the prevalence for the following risk factors for non-communicable diseases: overweight; irregular physical activity or sedentary; smoking; risk-related alcohol consumption; declared arterial hypertension; declared diabetes mellitus and declared high level of cholesterol. Absence of risk factors was reported only by 8.5% of the population interviewed. In conclusion, the high prevalence of exposure to at least one of the risk factors studied shows that health actions must be multifactorial and not be directed towarda single isolated factor.