Abiodun Bamidele Adelowo, Nestor Lemos Ferreira, George Besis, Animesh Gupta, Gideon Mlawa, Zahid Khan
The sub-Saharan African region is currently experiencing an unprecedented cardiovascular disease (CVD) epidemic, with CVD accounting for the highest mortality among adults in the region. Changing demographic profiles, lifestyle choices, and preferences for corporate work are identified as root causes of the CVD epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The primary objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of CV risk factors among different regions, countries, and work sectors in SSA. The secondary objective is to identify the work sector with the highest cluster or aggregate of CV risk factors in SSA. This systematic review reports the prevalence of CV risk factors among corporate workers in SSA between 2010 and 2024. Reputable platforms, such as the Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline, and Science Direct, were searched for relevant data. A total of 105 studies involving 76,027 participants from nine countries were analyzed. East Africa, Central Africa, West Africa, and Southern Africa had the highest prevalence of unhealthy diet (100%), physical inactivity (80%), high BMI (76%), and metabolic syndrome (MS) (55%), respectively. Ethiopia and South Africa had the highest prevalence of unhealthy diet (100%) and MS (55%), respectively, while Nigeria had the highest prevalence of both stress (71%) and poor sleep (79%). The healthcare work sector had the highest cluster of CV risk factors and the highest prevalence of unhealthy diet (80%), central obesity (51%), and high total cholesterol (36%); the education sector ranked highest in physical inactivity (75%); the administration sector ranked highest in current tobacco smoking (27%) and dysglycemia (17%); and the finance sector workers had the highest prevalence of stress (62%). The prevalence of most risk factors among the corporate workforce in SSA is high, with significant distribution variation across different regions, countries, and work sectors.
