Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factors and Socioeconomic Inequalities - What are the Links?

This project identified countries in the Asia Pacific Region that have population-level surveillance data on noncommunicable disease (NCD) risk factors. Country teams were then set up to conduct a series of country-specific (re)analyses of the data, using a standardized protocol aimed to provide comparable cross-country analyses to examine the relationships between NCD (behavioral) risk factors and indicators of social disadvantage and socioeconomic status.

The report is divided into five chapters. Chapter 1 presents a review of the evidence on the relationships between NCD risk factors and socioeconomic status in developed and developing countries. Chapter 2 outlines the methodology for conducting the (re)analysis and provides a detailed summary of the cut-off points for NCD risk factors and socioeconomic status measures used by each country. Chapter 3 presents the country-specific results in terms of prevalence rates and independent associations between risk factors and socioeconomic status measures. Chapter 4 presents the cross-country comparison of associations between risk factors and socioeconomic status measures. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the policy and programs implications of these results.