Prevalence and Co-Occurrence of Preventable Risk Factors for Noncommunicable Diseases in University Students

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the major cause of mortality globally. This study aimed to examine the prevalence and co-occurence of lifestyle risk factors in university students. Methods: The research is as an analytical-cross-sectional study and it started in January 2022, lasted a total of 3 months until April 2022. A total of 485 students were included in the study. The structured data collection form was created by the researchers in the light of the literature review and face-to-face applied to students. This study's lifestyle risk variables for NCDs included physical inactivity, low fruit and vegetable consumption, alcohol use, tobacco use, being overweight/obesity and SSB consumption. The data was analyzed in the SPSS 2021 package program. Results: The most frequent risk factor was insufficient physical activity (89.2%), followed by low fruits consumption (58.9%), low vegetable consumption (70.5%), alcohol consumption (44.5%), SSBs consumption (41.1%), tobacco use (25.2%), and being overweight or obesity (14.9%). Overall, 51.2% (46.5; 56.0) of students have a four or more risk factors. Co-occurrence of four or more lifestyle risk factors was significantly higher in students in private university (aOR:2.01 95% CI: 1.2; 3.35), living in student house (aOR:3.5795% CI: 1.96; 6.5), and fast food preference when eating outside (a0R:2.53 95% CI:1.62; 3.96). Conclusions: Our findings point to potential interventions for NCD risk factors. More research is required to determine the impact of actions on risk factor reduction clustering and intervention-focused.