Abstract:
Background: The World Health Organization recommends the implementation of interventions focused on the early detection of clinical risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD) as effective strategies for the control of CVD in low resource settings. However, due to health system resource constraints, surveillance capacity for the identification of high-risk populations for non-communicable diseases, including CVD have been inadequate. The purpose of this study was to describe the prevalence of CVD clinical risk factors among healthy adults residing in the Cape Coast metropolis of Ghana. The clinical risk factors assessed included glycemic control, insulin sensitivity, lipid control and blood pressure.
Methods: The study participants included 70 healthy adults without a previous diagnosis of CVD from Cape Coast metropolis. Blood samples, blood pressure and anthropometric measurement were obtained for each participant. Serum glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), insulin, glucose, triglycerides, and cholesterol levels were measured.
Results: Approximately four out of ten participants were either overweight or obese. Almost threequarters of the sample were considered prehypertensive or hypertensive. About three in ten were clinically prediabetic. About a third of the participants had high non-HDL cholesterol levels. Triglyceride concentration levels were found to be high in almost 10 percent of the study sample. Approximately six percent were identified as having metabolic syndrome.
Conclusion: A significant proportion of the study participants were identified to be at risk for CVD. There is the need for adaptive and less resource-intensive CVD risk-factor screening interventions to allow for the timely detection and management of CVD risk factors in low-resource settings.
