Socioeconomic impacts of non-communicable diseases in Kenya: Systematic review

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also termed as chronic diseases, are of long duration which are as a result of a combination of genetic, environmental ,physiological and behavioral factors. The NCDs that have the highest impact are cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes mellitus. NCDs pose a major health and development challenges of the 21st century. The aim of the study was to review the socioeconomic impacts of non-communicable diseases in Kenya, which have been on the rise in the last decade.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
To identify relevant literature, three freely available databases at University of Debrecen namely: PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus were used. The key words used were: socioeconomic impacts or factors, cancer or neoplasm, diabetes mellitus, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular disease. Inclusion criteria was publications from year 2008 onwards, full articles and published in English language,31 research articles were reviewed. Quality assessment was done for the 31 included research articles.
RESULTS
NCDs impose a financial and emotional burden on households in Kenya. The households spend more on treatment of NCDs at the expense of other household welfare expenses. The rapid rise of NCDs strained the health care system in terms of the human resource and finances. The county and national governments are strained economically by the NCDs as they have to purchase most advanced technology equipment required for diagnosis and treatment of NCDs which is usually expensive as it is imported.
CONCLUSION
NCDs contribute approximately more than 27% of all deaths in Kenya, and socioeconomic impacts are felt from household level to the government level.