Abstract
BackgroundThe growing rates of obesity in developing countries are alarming. There is a paucity of evidence about disparities of obesity in Lesotho. This study examined socioeconomic and area-based inequalities in obesity among non-pregnant women in Lesotho.MethodsData were extracted from the 2004, 2009 and 2014 Lesotho Demographic and Health Surveys (LDHS) and analyzed through the recently updated Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) of the World Health Organization. Obesity prevalence was disaggregated by four equity stratifiers, namely education, wealth, residence and sub-national region. For each equity stratifier, simple and complex as well as relative and absolute summary measures were calculated. A 95% confidence interval was used to measure statistical significance of findings.ResultsWe noticed substantial wealth-driven (D = -21.10, 95% CI; − 25.94, − 16.26), subnational region (PAR = -11.82, 95%CI; − 16.09, − 7.55) and urban-rural (− 9.82, 95% CI; − 13.65, − 5.99) inequalities in obesity prevalence without the inequalities improved over time in all the studied years. However, we did not identify educational inequality in obesity.ConclusionsWealth-driven and geographical inequalities was identified in Lesotho in all the studied time periods while education related inequalities did not appear during the same time period. All population groups in the country need to be reached with interventions to reduce the burden of obesity in the country.
Highlights
Obesity remains one of the major threats to public health
This study aimed to address the evidence gap in the extent and over time change of socioeconomic and areabased inequalities in obesity among non-pregnant women in Lesotho between 2004 and 2014.The specific objective of this study was (i) to determine the extent of socioeconomic and area-based inequalities in obesity prevalence among non-pregnant women in Lesotho between 2004 and 2014 and (ii) to examine trends in socioeconomic and area-based inequalities in obesity prevalence among non-pregnant women in Lesotho between 2004 and 2014
Data sources The data were derived from three rounds of Lesotho Demographic and Health Surveys (LDHSs) conducted in 2004, 2009 and 2014 and available in the offline version of World Health Organization (WHO) Health Equity Assessment Toolkit (HEAT) software updated in 2019
Summary
The emerging burden of chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes and obesity, threatens the gains in life expectancy made by combating infectious diseases [1, 2]. The emerging burden of obesity in sub-Saharan Africa if not appropriately addressed, in the decades, will create new challenges to health systems and threaten global economic development of African countries [5, 6]. In Africa, over 115 million people suffer from obesity-related problems and the rates are climbing faster than in just about anywhere else in the world [8]. Available evidence suggests that obesity, together with excessive consumption of fat and salt, are risk factors for occurrence of chronic problems such as cancer, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, stroke and heart disease [9]. This study examined socioeconomic and area-based inequalities in obesity among non-pregnant women in Lesotho
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