Prevalence of diabetes and hypertension in Colombia: A systematic review

Objective: To conduct a systematic review determining the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension among the adult population in Colombia. Methodology: A structured search was carried out in the electronic databases PubMed, SciELO and ProQuest, including studies published in Spanish and English from January 2000 to June 2016. Results: Four studies in hypertension and 2 in diabetes were selected. The overall prevalence of hypertension in the 4 selected studies ranged from 13.4% (95% CI:11.5-15.2) to 70.4% (95% CI no reported). The overall prevalence of diabetes in the 2 selected studies were 8.1(95% CI:6.8-9.5) and 8.9% (95% CI no reported). Conclusion: This review provides limited but useful evidence about the prevalence of two major noncommunicable diseases in Colombia. The results enhance the need of improving surveillance systems of risk factors of these diseases and standardizing methodological procedures for the estimation of prevalence studies.