Assessment of Risk Factors of Noncommunicable Diseases among Semiurban Population of Kavre District, Nepal

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are posing a great threat to mankind. Timely identification, prevention, and control of common risk factors help to reduce the burden of death from NCDs. These risk factors are also closely related to lifestyle changes. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of risk factors of NCDs among semiurban population of Kavre district. Community-based cross-sectional study design using the multistage sampling method was used to select 456 respondents. Data were collected using WHO's STEPS instruments 1 and 2. Four behavioural risk factors, i.e., current tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, physical inactivity, and inadequate servings of fruits and vegetables and two metabolic risk factors, i.e., abdominal obesity and hypertension were included in the study. The study revealed that more than one-third (36.0%; 43.0–52.2%) were current tobacco users, nearly one-sixth (15.8%; 12.7–19.4%) consumed alcohol harmfully, most of all did not have adequate servings of fruits and vegetables (95.8%; 93.6–97.3%), nearly two-thirds have abdominal obesity (62.1%; 57.5–66.4%), and more than one-fifth of population had hypertension (22.1%; 18.6–26.2%). Only 1.1% respondents were free from risk factors, while 78.5%, 46.1%, 14.5%, and 1.8% had two, three, four, and five risk factors, respectively. The co-occurrence of three or more risk factors was associated with increasing age (AOR ranging 4.7–10.9), male sex (AOR = 3.9 (2.4–6.3); p < 0.001), and illiterate respondents (AOR = 1.7 (1.0–2.9); p=0.038). The study concludes that almost all adults residing in semiurban areas of Kavre district have at least one or more risk factors, and nearly half of them have three or more risk factors. This suggests appropriate preventive approaches to be focused on younger age groups, male sex, and illiterate population to reduce the prevalence of NCDs in the near future.