ABSTRACT
IntroductionAccording to the World Health Organization (WHO), non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), diabetes, chronic pulmonary diseases and cancers accounted for 60 percent of mortality in the global population and 80 percent of mortality in low and middle income countries in 2008.Mongolia has been undergoing an epidemiological transition since 1990s. As a result, diseases related to lifestyles and health behavior, such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and injuries are growing steadily and have become the leading causes of population mortality.PurposeTo determine the prevalence of common risk factors for non-communicable diseases among civil servants in Bulgan aimag.Materials and MethodsA total of 300 randomly selected 22-64 years-olds of staff from 9 organizations of Bulgan aimag participated in the study. The prevalence and measures of average distribution of NCD risk factors were estimated.ResultsOut of all participants, 135 were males and 165 were females. Most respondents (96.3%) knew that smoking harms their health. With respect to the frequency of smoking, 15.5 % (95% CI 11.4-19.7) of the respondents were regular smokers, 10.5% (95% CI 6.9-13.9) were irregular smokers and 65.5% (95% CI 60.1-70.9) were non-smokers. 47.1% of the population strongly agreed to the statement that the Mongolians tend to drink too much alcohol at one time and another 47.8% agreed with this judgment. The attitude of the community related to the daily consumption of fruit demonstrated that only 28.2% (95%CI 23.1-33.3) of the respondents considered having fruits daily as “very important” and 58.7%(95%CI 53.1-64.3) considered it as “important”. According to the study results, the prevalence of people engaged in moderate levels of physical activity was 48.5% with significantly more males (60.9%) (95%CI 52.5-69.3) engaged in such activities than females (38.4%) (95%CI 30.9-45.9).Conclusions:1. The samples examined by this study demonstrated a good knowledge on the harms of smoking (96.3%) and second hand smoking (99%).2. The majority of the respondents (94.9%) agreed that the Mongolians tend to drink large amounts of alcohol at once.3. In general, many Bulgan civilians are lack a health promotion attitude in regards of daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, with only about 28.2% of the respondents considering it as very important.