National Non-Communicable Disease Monitoring Survey (NNMS)
A survey conducted between 2017-18, was released by Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan during the decadal year celebrations of ICMR’s National Center for Disease Informatics & Research at New Delhi.
The study population included responses from 10,659 adults (18-69 years) and 1,402 adolescents (15-17 years). A majority of adults (98.4%) in India consume an insufficient number of fruits and vegetables, and one in every five people are overweight, the survey reported.
Poor Physical activity:
The survey also found that 41.3% of adults and 25.2% of adolescents did not do sufficient physical activity.
The study has also alerted health policy makers as nearly three out of 10 respondents (28.5%) had raised blood pressure, especially “in urban areas and with increasing age”.
The NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and their incidence in younger age groups & in poorer sections of the society remains a matter of concern needs greater rethinking.
The process of Survey:
The NNMS was a cross-sectional survey that covered 12,000 households — 6,000 urban and 6,000 rural. The survey looked at 21 parameters — 10 related to adults, three for adolescents, one at the household level and rest to study health system responses. The sample population in the survey was chosen through a multistage cluster sampling method.
Findings
It is reported in the study, 26.1% of adult respondents were overweight and 6.2 % obese. Among adolescent respondents, 6.2% were overweight and 1.8% obese. Over weight & obesity is reported more amongst urbanities.
The survey also noted 17.0% respondents were in stage-1 hypertension and 7.9% were in stage-2 hypertension. Around 9.3% of the respondents had raised blood glucose
A majority of adults (98.4%) in India consume an inadequate amount of fruits and vegetables
40.2 % of aged 18-69 had at least three risk factors that included “daily tobacco use, inadequate fruits and/or vegetable intake, insufficient physical activity, overweight (≥25.0 Kg/m2), raised blood pressure, and raised fasting blood glucose including those on medication”.
The study also has recommended for concrete action plan to combat increase in trend of NCDs.
