The trend of global prevalence for hypertension has been dramatically increasing for the past two decades in Southeast Asian countries. A systematic review aiming to assess the prevalence of hypertension and its risk factors among the urban population in Southeast Asian countries was conducted. We performed database searches of PubMed and Web of Science and performed meta-analysis to determine the pooled prevalence estimate. The overall pooled prevalence estimate of hypertension for Southeast Asian urban population was 33.82%. Among this, 33.98% of hypertension was reported in the community and 32.45% among adolescents in school. The common risk factors that we found were male, ethnicity, education and socioeconomic level, body mass index, waist circumference, smoking, and dyslipidaemia. The review indicates an urgent need for primary and secondary prevention activities. Therefore, a multisectoral and intersectoral approach and collaboration should be undertaken to improve the overall health outcomes of all populations in all Southeast Asian countries.

Introduction: Smoking is a major public health significant and a leading preventable cause of premature mortality. Assisting smoking cessation is important due to potential positive health impacts. The establishment of "Quit Smoking Clinics" reflect a great commitment by the health authority to reduce the national burden of smoking prevalence. Aim: The objective is to measure the prevalence of smoking cessation and factors associate with successful quit smoking in all public healthcare "Quit Smoking Clinic" in Seremban district, Malaysia. Method: This retrospective cross-sectional study uses registry data and clinical notes from public healthcare clinics in Seremban district from January 2019 to June 2019. The outcome of interest was the proportion of smokers that enrolled in "Quit Smoking Clinic" who remained abstinent at six months of follow-up. Multivariate analysis was done to determine the predictors for successful smoking cessation in the study. Result: Out of the 285 smokers included in this study, 86 smokers (30.2%) quit smoking in this programme. Significant predictors of quitting smoking were use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), frequency of attending the appointments, presence of diabetes comorbidity, and Malay ethnicity. The Hosmer test showed a good model fit (p-value 0.998) and area under the curve (AUC) was 0.96% (95% CI 0.94-0.98) in the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Conclusion:The "Quit Smoking Clinic" programme showed good outcome and the service should be expanded to the private sector. Predictors for smoking cessation identified can be used by policy makers to design more targeted approaches, ensuring more smokers quit smoking.

Smoking is a public health problem worldwide and in Malaysia. According to serial Malaysian data, the age of initiation of smoking are at a younger age and the prevalence of smoking in Malaysia among adults and adolescents have not reduced much over the years. Smoking has a detrimental heath effect to smokers as well as those passively smoking. Younger age of smoking is linked to increased dependence of nicotine and many other high-risk behaviours. The two main issues which is addressed here is younger age of initiation of smoking and smoking bans in Malaysia. The factors which contribute to younger age of smoking initiation is tobacco factors, school factors, family factors and social factors. Challenges to smoking bans in Malaysia includes poor enforcement and innovation of tobacco products in Malaysia. A comprehensive approach including the mPOWER strategy should be carried out to address this problem towards achieving Tobacco Endgame.