Prevalence and distribution of risk factors for non-communicable chronic diseases among adults from Lages city, south of Brazil, 2007.

OBJECTIVE To describe prevalence and the distribution of risk factors to non-communicable chronic diseases among adults from Lages, Santa Catarina, Brazil. METHODS Probabilistic sample of adult urban population, of both genders and aged from 20 to 59 years old was interviewed (n=2022). The sample process was made through conglomerates. It was applied a structured questionnaire with questions related to demographical, socio-economical, and behavior and self-referred diseases. In this study the following informations, related to the risk/protection factors for non-communicable chronic diseases, were used: gender, age, school background, body mass index, waist circumference, smoking, physical activity, pressure levels, self-referred mellitus diabetes and feeding characteristics. Prevalence for risk/protection factors for non-communicable chronic diseases, in the total population and according to gender and school background, was calculated. RESULTS The studied population is prone to non-communicable chronic diseases, presenting substantial proportions of hypertension (33.78%), overweight individuals (33.46%), obesity (23.46%) and abdominal obesity (43.81%). In relation to feeding characteristics, women presented higher prevalence of behaviors considered as protection factors, relative to men. It was found less than 30.0% of physically inactive individuals and 45.9% of smokers or ex-smokers. CONCLUSION Descriptive studies such as this could be the basis for the development of public policies specific to the adult population of Lages, in order to guide the organization, planning and quality improvement of health assistance services, aiming the reduction in the occurrence and in the impact of non-communicable chronic diseases.