Risk of harm from alcohol use and heavy alcohol consumption: Its association with other NCD risk factors in Thailand.

While there is an abundance of literature examining the relation between quantity of alcohol consumption and risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCD), there is less evidence on whether the risk of harm from alcohol use would have a similar relationship with NCD risk factors. The study aims to determine the association between level of harm from alcohol use and NCD risk factors. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among health care workers in Thailand in 2013. The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) was used to assessed risk of harm from alcohol use. The results suggest that higher risk of harm from alcohol use was associated with two of the eight NCD risk factors among women (higher blood pressure and higher triglyceride level) and five of the eight NCD risk factors among men (smoking, physical inactivity, higher blood pressure, higher blood glucose and higher triglyceride level). For men, assessing risk of harm could be incorporated as part of NCD programs as practitioners do not have to worry about the accuracy of the alcohol quantification and conversion to standard drinks. However, among women, quantifying volume may still be needed.

Functional beliefs and risk minimizing beliefs among Thai healthcare workers in Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai hospital: its association with intention to quit tobacco and alcohol.

BACKGROUND: Individual health beliefs are likely to play a key role in how people respond to knowledge and information about the potential harm from smoking and alcohol abuse. The objectives of the study were to 1) explore whether functional beliefs and risk minimizing beliefs were associated with intention to quit smoking and confidence to quit smoking and 2) explore whether functional beliefs and risk minimizing beliefs were associated with intention to quit alcohol drinking and confidence to quit alcohol drinking. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2013 among health care workers working in Thailand. Using predicted factor scores from factor analysis, the relationship between factor scores for each of the two beliefs and intention to quit and confidence to quit were tested using ANOVA and further adjusted for age and sex using linear regression. RESULTS: Functional beliefs were inversely associated with the intention to quit and confidence to quit smoking. Both functional beliefs and risk minimizing beliefs were each inversely associated with the intention to quit and confidence to quit alcohol drinking. CONCLUSION: Our study enhances the understanding of the complexities of health beliefs regarding these two commonly abused substances. As functional beliefs were associated with smoking and alcohol use, interventions to counter the cultural values and individual beliefs about the benefits of smoking and alcohol use are needed. Tackling risk minimizing beliefs by providing individualized feedback regarding harm may also be useful in alcohol drinkers.

Living in an urban environment and non-communicable disease risk in Thailand: Does timing matter?

BACKGROUND: This paper uses a life-course approach to explore whether the timing and/or duration of urban (vs rural) exposure was associated with risk factors for NCDs. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among health care workers in two hospitals in Thailand. Two measures of urbanicity were considered: early-life urban exposure and the proportion of urban life years. We explored four behavioral NCD risk factors, two physiological risk factors and four biological risk factors. RESULTS: Both measures of urbanicity were each independently associated with increases in all behavioral and physiological risk factors. For some biological risk factors, people spending their early life in an urban area may be more susceptible to the effect of increasing proportion of urban life years than those growing up in rural areas. CONCLUSION: Urbanicity was associated with increases in behavioral and physiological risk factors. However, these associations may not translate directly into increases in biological risk factors. It is likely that these biological risk factors were results of a complex interaction between both long term accumulation of exposure and early life exposures.