Saint Lucia records 82% of deaths due to NCDs, releases STEPS report

Castries, Saint Lucia: The Epidemiology unit has reported 82 percent of deaths due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in its STEPS report, which are majorly caused by the consumption of Tobacco, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets and the harmful use of alcohol.

It is to be noted that non-communicable diseases include chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancer and particularly cardiovascular diseases and such diseases leading to the death or severe illness.

The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Elderly Affairs held a stakeholder meeting on 14 February to officially release the results of the 2019/2020 PAHO and WHO Stepwise Report, which they have built on the NCD survey.

Noting this, the report is also known as STEPS. Before this meeting, Saint Lucia released its STEPS reports in October 2023. Further, the island nation has now completed two rounds of STEPS, the first in 2012 and second in October 2020.

To build a STEPS report, officials conduct a survey with the help of research methodology, which includes simple, standardized method for the collection of data. After the data is collected, they examined and analysis the facts related to chronic diseases and their effects.

The aim of the survey was to find out the prevalence of common risk factors for NCDs by exploring demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the citizens in the Federation.

Health Ministry officials have highlighted key findings of the STEPS report, which have raised concerns given their association with undesirable NCD outcomes.  The official results and report of the Saint Lucia STEPS survey can be found on the WHO website Saint Lucia – STEPS 2019.

STEPS report of Saint Lucia on NCDs

1. As per the survey, there are 16.8 per cent of males and 2.1 per cent of females who smoke Tobacco daily.
2. There are 53.9 per cent of women and 72.3 per cent of males who currently drink alcohol (drank alcohol in the past 30 days).
3. About 19.1 per cent of population is engaged in heavy consumption of alcohol (6 or more drinks on any occasion in the past 30 days).
4. It is to be noted that there are 83.2 per cent o people who ate less than 5 servings of fruit and/ or vegetables on average per day.
5. Further, 17.3 per cent of citizens eat processed foods that are high in salt.
6. It has been recorded that about 6.3 per cent of people add salt to their food such as salty sauce, before eating or as they are eating.
7. About 17.1 per cent of persons are practicing insufficient physical activity (Defined as <150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week or equivalent).
8. There are 80.8 per cent of women aged 30-49 years who have never had a screening test for cervical cancer, 58.8 per cent of females between 50-69-years never had a mammography and 19.3 per cent of women never had a breast examination.

The Ministry of health encouraging people for routine health check-ups and urged them to discuss or meet medical practitioners in case of any emergency.