Development in rural areas will provide people with much needed access to education, healthcare and improved sanitation... But it could come at a cost of a greater incidence of heart disease and diabetes
- Johanna Riha
Over 530 million people live in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where rates of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases tend to be much lower than in urban areas. However, many of these areas are becoming increasingly urbanised, with people living within larger populations in more built-up environments, with better access to education, health facilities and utilities, for example.
In an attempt to better understand the impact that urbanisation is having on communities, a team of researchers from the University of Cambridge, the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute Uganda Research Unit on AIDS, and Deakin University in Australia analysed data from 7,340 people aged 13 years and above across 25 villages in Uganda. Each individual was allocated an ‘urbanicity score’ and this was compared to their lifestyle risk factors, such as alcohol consumption, fruit and vegetable consumption, body mass index (BMI) and physical activity. The results are published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
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Image: Uganda
Credit: neiljs
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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