Abstract
Aim
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are associated with modifiable health risk factors. There is a lack of evidence regarding clusters of health-related behaviours among school-going adolescents from sub-Saharan Africa. This study was conducted to identify clustering patterns of health risk factors (i.e. smoking tobacco, inadequate fruit intake, inadequate vegetable intake, physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour, anxiety and depression) and association with sociodemographic factors among school-going adolescents in Liberia.
Subject and methods
The 2017 Liberian Global School-based Student Health Survey on 2774 adolescents aged 11 years and above (52.5% females) sampled with a two-stage cluster sample design was used. Latent class analysis was used to generate the clusters and latent class regression assessed the associations between sociodemographic factors and the clusters.
Results
We identified three clusters labelled as (1) ‘low substance use, moderately active cluster’ (34.8%); (2) ‘inadequate fruit and vegetable cluster’ (48.9%) and (3) ‘risk taking cluster’ (16.3%)’. Compared to cluster 1, adolescent boys [AOR = 1.71, 1.29–2.27, p < 0.001], and those in grade 10–12 [AOR = 1.51, 1.13–2.02, p < 0.001] were more likely to belong to cluster 2. Participants aged 15 years and above [AOR = 0.60, 0.39–0.91, p = 0.018] were less likely to belong to cluster 2. Compared to cluster 1, adolescents aged 15 years and above [AOR = 3.58, 1.33–9.62, p = 0.011] and those with low socio-economic status [AOR = 1.83, 1.22–2.73, p = 0.003] were more likely to belong to cluster 3.
Conclusion
These results underscore the need for interventions that address adolescent multiple health risk factors, especially considering sociodemographic differences.
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Data availability
Data for this study was obtained from the World Health Organisation (WHO) website and is freely available online.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners for the data collected and for making the data freely available. We also thank the students for their participation in the study.
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Prince Atorkey conceptualised the study and the design. Statistical analysis was performed by Prince Atorkey. The first draft of the introduction, methodology and results were written by Prince Atorkey with input from Kwaku Oppong Asante. Discussion was written by Kwaku Oppong Asante. All authors critically reviewed the manuscript and approved the final version.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were done in accordance with the ethical standards of the Ethics Committee of the Liberia Ministry of Education and the WHO and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Written approval was obtained from Liberia Ministry of Education, the schools that participated, and teachers.
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Atorkey, P., Asante, K.O. Clustering of multiple health risk factors among a sample of adolescents in Liberia: a latent class analysis. J Public Health (Berl.) 30, 1389–1397 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01465-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01465-y