Hard Pill to Swallow: Socio-economic Factors behind Non communicable Diseases of Employed Persons in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Non-communicable diseases shorten the life expectancy and pave the way for an increase in the mortality and state of disabilities in humans while it has become a global challenge, with the present epidemic transition. Most of the lower and middle-income countries, including Sri Lanka, are currently giving priority to this issue in their respective health policies. The main objective of this research was to study socio-economic factors that affect the prevalence of non-communicable diseases among employed persons in general, with a special focus on two selected diseases. Micro-level secondary data from the Household Income and Expenditure Survey of Sri Lanka 2016 was used for this study. The Logit regression models were used for data analysis with the dependent variables for the prevalence of non-communicable diseases, having diabetes, and blood pressure. The study has found that factors of age, being female, and being Indian Tamil persons, positively affected the occurrence of non-communicable diseases; while factors like living in the rural and estate sector, age square, being clerical workers, elementary workers, and agriculture workers affected it negatively. Profession-specific policies are further suggested to minimize the negative implications of non-communicable diseases in Sri Lanka.