Research Article - Journal of Nutrition and Human Health (2025) Volume 9, Issue 1
Prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors among civil servant in Umuahia North local government area in Abia state.
Background: Cardiovascular diseases contribute to high mortality rate occurring all over the world and its risk factors result from diabetes, hypertension, obesity/overweight, dyslipidemia, smoking and inactivity. Objectives: The study was aimed to assess the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors among civil servant in Umuahia-North L.G.A in Abia-State.
Method: A cross sectional study was conducted among one thousand civil servants, (300 from Abia- State Secretariats while 700 from Federal Medical Centre Umuahia) both in Umuahia-North L.G.A. Multi-stage stratified sampling techniques were adopted in the study to obtained information on the cardiovascular disease risk factors among them. Civil servants aged 20-60 years were randomly selected. A standard method used to determine the height, weight measurement, body mass index, waist-hip circumference, blood sugar, blood pressure and dyslipidemia.
The data collected were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0. Descriptive analysis of the means, standard deviation, frequency, percentage, correlation and Chi-square were used to present the basic demographic profile of the subject while T-test was used to determine the significance difference between male and female subjects.
Results: revealed that both male and female were at risk of cardiovascular diseases based on their waist circumference (49.6%) and waist-hip-ratio (52.2%) classification. Prevalence of overweight (35.1%) and obesity (36.9%) were high among the respondents. According to their systolic and diastolic blood pressure, it was observed that more men (8.4%) were at risk in hypertension crisis stage than women (2.3%). Also, 24.2% were pre-diabetic and diabetic.
Conclusion: men were found to be more at risk compared to the women. This shows the need for civil servant workers to be encouraged to take part in physical activity and to be physically active while controlling their food intake as it would help to reduce high mortality among people within the age of 41 and above because they were more predisposed to cardiac problems.
Author(s):Collins PI*, Okeke PN