PREVALENCE OF NON-COMMUNICABLE CHRONIC DISEASES ACCORDING TO RACE/SKIN COLOR IN BRAZIL: ANALYSIS FROM THE NATIONAL HEALTH SURVEY, 2019
Chronic diseases; racial disparities; Racial factors; Health inequities; Cross-sectional studies.
The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases according to race/skin color in Brazil. It is a cross-sectional study based on data from the National Health Survey, 2019. The sample consisted of people aged 15 or over selected to answer the survey, corresponding to 94,114 individuals. To analyze the outcome, issues related to chronic health conditions were considered. The variable race/skin color was determined as the dependent variable and sociodemographic variables were included as adjustment variables. Poisson regression was applied to estimate the prevalence ratio (PR) and the respective 95% confidence interval (95%CI) using the sample weight and incorporating the effect of the sample design. The prevalence of arterial hypertension was 24.76% (95%CI 24.26%; 25.27%) and multimorbidity was 28.58% (95%CI 28.02%; 29.15%). Black race/skin color was a risk factor for high blood pressure (PR: 1.01 – 95%CI 1.03; 1.10), diabetes (PR: 1.07 – 95%CI 1.00; 1 .15) and stroke (PR: 1.20 – 95%CI 1.04; 1.38). In the multivariate analysis, it was observed that black race/skin color is associated with a higher prevalence of arterial hypertension (PR: 1.19 – 95%CI 1.15; 1.22), diabetes (PR: 1.17 – 95%CI % 1.09; 1.25) and stroke (PR: 1.24 – 95%CI 1.08; 1.43), and brown race/skin color to arterial hypertension (PR: 1.05 – CI95 % 1.03; 1.07) and diabetes (PR: 1.05 – 95%CI 1.00; 1.10). There is a higher prevalence of chronic diseases in the black and brown population in Brazil.