Abstract

Introduction Of all human deaths in the world in 2008 63 percent are owing to non-communicable diseases NCDs of which 80 percent are in developing countries In Jamaica for 2008 50 percent of deaths occur to NCDs especially among women and older people The adolescence period is rarely seen for it contributory role to NCDs which is the rationale for few research in the area among this cohort in English-speaking Caribbean This study fills the gap in the literature by examining NCDs among adolescents Objectives The objectives are to examine the adolescence period as it relates to NCDs evaluate health indices in this period and determine the prevalance of NCDs as well as disaggregate NCDs by socio-demographic characteristics Materials and methods A sample of 1 394 respondents ages 10 to 19 years from a national probability survey is used for this study The data are taken from the Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions which is a modification of the World Bank s Household Living Standards Survey Results The prevalence rate for NCDs among adolescents in Jamaica is 2 7 percent 7 percent report having an illness and among those with an illness 48 7 percent have NCDs diabetes 4 0 percent hypertension 1 3 Other NCDs 43 4 percent Diabetes begins in middle adolescence among poor rural females and hypertension starts in late adolescent among affluent urban females Conclusion The findings herein warrant public health interventions that are specialized to the sociodemographic and health realities of adolescents