Noncommunicable diseases are the top cause of deaths. In 2008, more than 36 million people worldwide died of such diseases. Ninety per cent of those lived in low-income and middle-income countries.WHO Maps Noncommunicable Disease Trends in All Countries
The STEPS Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factor Survey, part of the STEPwise approach to surveillance (STEPS) Adult Risk Factor Surveillance project by the World Health Organization (WHO), is a survey methodology to help countries begin to develop their own surveillance system to monitor and fight against noncommunicable diseases. The methodology prescribes three steps—questionnaire, physical measurements, and biochemical measurements.
The steps consist of core items, core variables, and optional modules. Core topics covered by most surveys are demographics, health status, and health behaviors. These provide data on socioeconomic risk factors and metabolic, nutritional, and lifestyle risk factors. Details may differ from country to country and from year to year.
The Fiji NCD STEPS survey was a nation wide cross sectional assessment of 15 to 64 year olds carried out from February to
May 2002 using the WHO NCD STEPS surveillance methodology and instruments with these main objectives:
-To investigate and document the prevalence of key NCDs in Fiji.
-To determine the prevalence of and better understand the major risk factors and their associations for common NCDs in Fiji.
vc01: Edited data, second version, for internal use only.
The scope of the Fiji STEPS survey includes:
- Demographic information
- Smoking/tobacco use
- Alcohol consumption
- Kava/yaqona consumption
- Nutrition
- Physical activity
- Use of prescription medication
- History of blood pressure measument and of hypertension
- History of diabetes
- Step2: Physical measurements: height and weight, waist and hip circumference, blood pressure and heart rate,
- Step3: Biochemical measurements: Fasting status, blood glucose, cholesterol
- Collection start: 2002
- Collection end: 2002
