00:00Last year, the Ministry of Health completed the second phase of the Pan American Health
00:04Organization and the World Health Organization's STEP survey, which had a target size of 5,000
00:11people with 4,052 respondents ages 18 to 69.
00:16The purpose of the survey was to monitor future risk of non-communicable diseases within the
00:21population.
00:22Director of the NCD unit at the Ministry, Dr. Maria Claperton, told the Joint Select
00:27Committee on Social Services that a 2011 survey was used comparatively to gauge the trajectory
00:34of the population for alcohol.
00:37The recent survey looked at consumption within a 30-day period.
00:41We found a prevalence of 51.5%, 59.6% in males and 43.4% females.
00:52What we noted here was that in 2011, the prevalence of alcohol consumption was 40.6%, so there
01:00was a 10.9% increase between 2011 and 2024.
01:06And with respect to consumption patterns, it was observed that even though males consumed
01:11more alcohol than females, we noted a significant increase in the consumption of alcohol among
01:18females and this was found to be an increase of 12.5%.
01:22Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Roshan Parasram, highlighted that alcohol is linked to a number
01:28of NCDs.
01:29It has been associated, now clearly in the literature, for the development of certain
01:34types of cancers, for example, and alcohol by itself is a risk factor for certain mental
01:40health diseases as well.
01:41For the first time, mental health was factored into the survey.
01:45So with respect to the persons who responded in terms of symptoms for depression within
01:51the past 12 months of administering the survey, we found a prevalence of 13.6%, with the larger
01:59proportion being among females as opposed to males.
02:03The rate of consumption for tobacco was 21.3% and this activity was higher in males than
02:09in females.
02:10Five risk factors were used to forecast the burden of NCDs in the country over the next
02:15decade – daily smoking, low physical activity, elevated blood pressure readings, overweight
02:21and low fruit and vegetable intake.
02:24And we found that 1.6% of the population had zero of these risk factors, whereas 38.4%
02:37of the population had three or more of these five risk factors.
02:42Minister of Health Terence de Alzing said many steps have been taken to tackle the NCD
02:47epidemic in the country, including banning sugar-sweetened drinks in schools, giving
02:52out-at-home blood glucose monitors, the decentralization of care, promoting breastfeeding, etc.
02:59But he is making his stance clear concerning suggestions for restrictions by way of policies
03:04and legislation to curb the consumption of unhealthy products.
03:08We have no plans to legislate what people eat.
03:13We ask people to make the wise decisions and Dr Claperton can tell you we have done a lot
03:20of work in how to read labels, what is the salt content in french fries, 16 teaspoons
03:27of sugar in one soft drink, when your average daily intake should be what, six?
03:33De Alzing also said that his ministry has no planned policy to restrict advertising
03:39on alcohol.
03:40Alicia Boucher, TV6 News.
Comments