Abstract

The cardiovascular diseases including ischemic heart disease (IHD)emerged as a major health problem in the 20th century. It is considered as a modern epidemic which started firstly in the developed nations in the middle of the century, where it is now following a declining trend. On the other hand, the epidemic is emerging now in developing nations because of the changing lifestyles and the dietary habits with the consequent obesity; besides the modern day’s stressful life superimposed by the smoking, heavy alcohol consumption; increased life span leading to accumulation of these cases and a consequent disease burden on the society; and the increased detection of such cases due to better diagnostic facilities and widened network of health services. These diseases are posing a great challenge to the already strained health services in the developing countries; which envisages the role of a preventive approach which also becomes important while noting the genetic predisposition of the population in the south Asian countries including India. Since the intimal streaks start to appear from the early childhood and there is tracing of the obesity in the life; preventive and health promotional activities need to be adopted by the population at large since the early life. Materials and Methods: A rural population of 30 years & above was studied to find out the prevalence and the association of various risk factors with the IHD; from the three villages in Jammu, with a combined population of 6169. The Sample size was arrived at taking into account the prevalence rate of IHD in rural areas as 4.15%[8]. A population of 2216 rural adults was studied by making house to house visits. The information was obtained about the general characteristics, the physical activity (recorded as per the “International Physical Activity Questionnaire”), the socio-economic status (assessed by using the “Uday- Pareek scale”) and the presence of angina pectoris by the “Rose questionnaire”. Also, height and weight were recorded. The history about the stressful events and personal habits was also taken. Conclusions: The prevalence of the disease was found as 1.94% (1.50% for the females and 2.41% for the males). Various risk factors studied with a significant association with the IHD were an increasing age, presence of smoking, hypertension assessed at two Blood Pressure levels of 160/95 mmHg & 140/90 mm Hg., a positive family history, lack of physical activity and the presence of stressful event etc. Factors with which no association could be established included obesity, alcoholism, work in women and marital status.

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