BMC Public Health
BioMed Central
Open Access
Research article
Prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors in a middle-income country and estimated cost of a treatment strategy Pascal Bovet*1,2, Conrad Shamlaye1, Anne Gabriel1, Walter Riesen3 and Fred Paccaud1 Address: 1Ministry of Health and Social Services, Victoria, Seychelles, 2University Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Lausanne, Switzerland and 3Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Hematology, Kantonspital, St Gallen, Switzerland Email: Pascal Bovet* -
[email protected]; Conrad Shamlaye -
[email protected]; Anne Gabriel -
[email protected]; Walter Riesen -
[email protected]; Fred Paccaud -
[email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 19 January 2006 BMC Public Health 2006, 6:9
doi:10.1186/1471-2458-6-9
Received: 25 August 2005 Accepted: 19 January 2006
This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/9 © 2006 Bovet et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: We assessed the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a middle-income country in rapid epidemiological transition and estimated direct costs for treating all individuals at increased cardiovascular risk, i.e. following the so-called "high risk strategy". Methods: Survey of risk factors using an age- and sex-stratified random sample of the population of Seychelles aged 25–64 in 2004. Assessment of CVD risk and treatment modalities were in line with international guidelines. Costs are expressed as US$ per capita per year. Results: 1255 persons took part in the survey (participation rate of 80.2%). Prevalence of main risk factors was: 39.6% for high blood pressure (≥140/90 mmHg or treatment) of which 59% were under treatment; 24.2% for high cholesterol (≥6.2 mmol/l); 20.8% for low HDL-cholesterol (102 cm in men and >88 in women), increased triglycerides (≥1.7 mmol/l), low HDL-cholesterol (