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Background. Telemedicine has recently become a more important platform for the delivery of health interventions such as blood glucose monitoring and a range of other health concerns. Objectives. The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to examine the effect of different types of telemedicine compared to standard care on glycated haemoglobin (HbA1C) level and other glucose-related indicators for persons with diabetes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Material and methods. The following electronic databases were searched from 1990 to February 2022; MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus and the Cochrane Library. A total of six randomised controlled trials met the inclusion criteria and were included in the data for the meta-analysis. Results. Six randomised controlled trials (n = 461 individuals) comparing telemedicine standard care in people with type 2 diabetes in the MENA region were included. The mean difference in HbA1c between the control and telemedicine groups was -0.52 (95% CI, -0.79, -0.25) (p < 0.001), showing better HbA1C scores in patients receiving telemedicine than those receiving standard care only. The study’s heterogeneity was quite low, with an I2 value of 1% (p = 0.55). The evidence surrounding the impacts of telemedicine on all categories of cholesterol was low and insignificant. Conclusions. The evidence gathered in this systematic analysis shows that using telemedicine in comparison to standard care improves HbA1c levels in persons with type 2 diabetes in the MENA region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the prevalence of obesity has rapidly increased in the low‐ and middle‐income countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) regions, child undernutrition remains a public‐health challenge. We examined region‐specific sociodemographic determinants of this double burden of malnutrition, specifically, the co‐occurrence of child stunting and overweight, using Demographic and Health Survey and Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey data (2003–2016) from 11 countries in the MENA (n = 118,585) and 13 countries in the LAC (n = 77,824) regions. We used multiple logistic regressions to model region‐specific associations of maternal education and household wealth with child nutritional outcomes (6–59 months). The prevalence of stunting, overweight, and their co‐occurrence was 24%, 10%, and 4.3% in children in the MENA region, respectively, and 19%, 5%, and 0.5% in children in the LAC region, respectively. In both regions, higher maternal education and household wealth were significantly associated with lower odds of stunting and higher odds of overweight. As compared with the poorest wealth quintiles, decreased odds of co‐occurring stunting and overweight were observed among children from the second, third, and fourth wealth quintiles in the LAC region. In the MENA region, this association was only statistically significant for the second wealth quintile. In both regions, double burden was not statistically significantly associated with maternal education. The social patterning of co‐occurring stunting and overweight in children varied across the two regions, indicating potential differences in the underlying aetiology of the double burden across regions and stages of the nutrition transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]