HÀ NỘI — At 43.8 per cent of the country’s adult population, general alcohol consumption rate of Vietnamese people is higher than some might expect. 

More than 77 per cent of adult males and 11 per cent of women said that they had consumed at least six units of alcohol in the past 30 days. More than 44 per cent of men and 1.2 per cent of women said that they had engaged in heavy episodic drinking.

The figures on alcohol consumption were part of the latest survey on non communicable disease (NCD) risk factors revealed yesterday in Hà Nội.

The survey found that the general smoking rate of Vietnamese aged 15 years and above was at 22.5 per cent. The percentage of males who currently smoked tobacco was very high at 45.3 per cent, while female smoking was at 1.1 per cent.

“Overweight and obesity rate was at 15.6 per cent in Việt Nam. Vietnamese on average consumed 9.4 grams of salt daily, nearly double the WHO recommendation level of below 5 grams of salt daily,” the survey said.

It added that nearly one third, or 28.1 per cent, of Vietnamese people did not indulge in physical exercise. As a result, nearly 19 per cent of Vietnamese people had high blood pressure (HA) problems. The HA rate was higher in males at 23.1 per cent and 14.9 per cent in females.

WHO representative Nguyễn Tuấn Lâm said Việt Nam should put forward intervention measures against NCD with a focus on strengthening law and regulations on alcohol damage prevention.

The country should effectively implement measures following recommendations of the WHO, such as alcohol promotion and advertisement, set a time limit for selling and purchasing beer and wines, alcohol trading and tax policies.

Việt Nam should also undertake measures to reduce the use of salt through education and communication programmes and integrate the programme on overweight and obesity prevention into the National Nutrition Programme, Lâm added.

The survey was conducted by the health ministry’s Preventive Medicine Department on nearly 3,800 people aged between 18 and 69 years in Việt Nam in 2015.

The survey has three parts -- questionnaire, physical measurements and biochemical measurements. Data is collected to help countries build and strengthen their surveillance capacity and develop appropriate strategy and intervention policies.

The health ministry said that while the communicable disease rate was reducing, NCD rate increased to 71.6 per cent in 2012, compared with 40 per cent in 1986 and 60 per cent in 2006. Deaths caused by NCDs make up 73 per cent of the total deaths, primarily cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases. — VNS