Publication:

Burden of pre-hypertension, hypertension and dyslipidemia and its associated risk factors among adult population of urban slums in South Delhi, India

Background Cardiovascular disease is one of the predominant Global health concerns, the burden of CVD risk factors is increasingly shifting, impacting urban slums population.

Methods A community based cross sectional study among randomly selected two urban slums of South Delhi was conducted to assess the burden of hypertension and its associated risk factors. 246 randomly selected respondents (Women: 144) aged 40 years & above completed the survey along with Anthropometric and biochemical assessments

Results Prevalence of hypertension is found to be 50.81% (Men: 43.1% and Women: 56.2%. RR 1.3 (95% CI:1.0-1.7)), female Gender (p=0.05), elderly age (p<0.01) and hypercholesterolemia (p<0.01), were significantly associated with hypertension. Pre-hypertension was found to be high (70.1%) among remaining others. Prevalence of self-reported diabetes is found to be 56.8% (Men: 44 (55%) and Women: 68 (58.1%). RR: 1.403 (95% CI: 0.56-3.46)), Assessment of total cholesterol showed that 6.1% (15) and 16.7% (41) were having high and border line high levels respectively, higher proportion of women were having higher levels of dyslipidemia while compared with men (p<0.01). Observations on NCD risk factors shows that Men were having higher proportions of habits of smoking, smokeless tobacco and alcohol while compared with women (p<0.01), but higher proportions of women (95.8%) had abdominal obesity compared to men (p<0.01).

Conclusions Prevalence of hypertension, pre-hypertension and self-reported diabetes is high among adults of urban slum dwellers and women have higher burden along with hypercholesterolemia and abdominal obesity.