1. The establishment of public health policies and the burden of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the Americas.
- Author
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Díaz LA, Fuentes-López E, Ayares G, Idalsoaga F, Arnold J, Márquez-Lomas A, Ramírez CA, Medel MP, Viñuela F, Lacalle L, Roblero JP, Ferreccio C, Lazo M, Brahmania M, Singal AK, Dirchwolf M, Méndez-Sánchez N, Chavez-Tapia N, Guerra P, Restrepo JC, Oliveira CP, Lombardo J, Sánchez A, Elizondo M, Tagle M, Padilla M, Sánchez M, Carrera E, Girala M, Chery O, Castellanos-Fernández M, Barrera F, Lazarus JV, Kamath PS, Bataller R, Arrese M, and Arab JP
- Subjects
- Americas epidemiology, Health Policy, Humans, Obesity complications, Obesity epidemiology, Risk Factors, Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease complications
- Abstract
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects 20-25% of the general population and is associated with morbidity, increased mortality, and elevated health-care costs. Most NAFLD risk factors are modifiable and, therefore, potentially amenable to being reduced by public health policies. To date, there is no information about NAFLD-related public health policies in the Americas. In this study, we analysed data from 17 American countries and found that none have established national public health policies to decrease NAFLD-related burden. There is notable heterogeneity in the existence of public health policies to prevent NAFLD-related conditions. The most common public health policies were related to diabetes (15 [88%] countries), hypertension (14 [82%] countries), cardiovascular diseases (14 [82%] countries), obesity (nine [53%] countries), and dyslipidaemia (six [35%] of countries). Only seven (41%) countries had a registry of the burden of NAFLD, and efforts to raise awareness in the Americas were scarce. The implementation of public health policies are urgently needed in the Americas to decrease the burden of NAFLD., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests NC-T received speaking fees from Bayer. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)
- Published
- 2022
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