Summary
Clinical report
See the full content of this document
Extract
Small island states in crisis: the economic impact of lifestyle diseases in the South Pacific.
INTRODUCTION
Public health concerns in the South Pacific region in recent years have shifted from the prevention and control of infectious diseases to dealing with the increasingly prevalent problem of non-communicable disease (NCD) or what has been termed lifestyle illnesses. Improved living standards have resulted in increased consumption of high fat diets and increased use of alcohol and tobacco. Epidemiological research has firmly established a relationship between these consequences of higher living standards and ill health. (2) Foremost among these illnesses is diabetes which affects upwards of 30 million people in the Western Pacific region with predictions of this number doubling over the next twenty years. (3) Diabetes has become much more prevalent in the Pacific region with certain island nations reporting extraordinarily high population levels. Nauru has one of the highest incidences of diabetes in the world with between 30 and 40 percent of the adult population suffering from the disease. (4) Hypertension and other circulatory diseases are also on the rise as the result of the adoption of modern diets high in saturated fats and oils and processed sugar rather than reliance on traditional root crops and fish as sources of carbohydrates and protein. In Fiji, mortality rates and complications related to diabetes have significantly increased over the past thirty years with mean rates doubling about every five years. (5) In a comprehensive survey to measure the incidence of diabetes in the population of Fiji, Hoskins, et al (6) surveyed 5000 adults and found 24 percent of Fijian females and 15 percent of Fijian males to be diabetic while 3...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
