Socio-demographic and Epidemiological Characterisation of Leprosy in the Population of Pará, Amazon, from 2016 to 2020

Abstract

Objective: To describe the sociodemographic and epidemiological characteristics of the population with leprosy in the State of Pará from 2016 to 2020.
 Methodology: Cross-sectional ecological study, based on data from the Disease Information and Notification System (SINAN). The study was conductedin 144 municipalities in Pará, Amazon. The data were organised and distributed by 12 integration Regions.
 Results and Discussion: In the analysed data, a total of 11,687 cases of leprosy were verified in Pará from 2016 to 2020. Sociodemographic data showed a predominance in the male population, in the brown race, and in those with low education, this study demonstrated that leprosy is prevalent in vulnerable populations with low socioeconomic status, highlighting social inequalities. Conclusion: Monitoring epidemiological and operational indicators of leprosy is essential for evaluating programs and planning public health policies to contribute to epidemiological surveillance.

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to map leprosy-related disability in rural and remote areas in Indonesia

“…Findings related to demographic factors in this study, which seemed to affect the domains of ICF disability, have been observed in other studies. Most of the patients in this study were males within the range of productive age group, as also found in other studies from Indonesia, Brazil, and India [43][44][45][46]. Our results also showed that body function, activity limitation, and participation restriction had positive correlations with age.…”

“…More than half of this study population also had low educational attainment, indicating a shared context of socioeconomic vulnerability. This trend has been observed in Indonesian, Indian, and Brazilian studies by Menaldi et al [8], Karotia et al [49], and Dergan et al [46], respectively. Individuals possessing higher levels of education are believed to adopt health-conscious lifestyles, actively acquire medical knowledge, and mitigate the risk of disability [50].…”

“…SALSA's Indonesian edition was used for this investigation. The total score ranges from 0-80, with the result classified as: • no substantial limitation (0-24) • mild limitation (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39) • moderate limitation (40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49) • severe limitation (50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59) • extreme limitation (60-80)…”

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health to map leprosy-related disability in rural and remote areas in Indonesia

“…Most of the patients in this study were males within the range of productive age group, as also found in other studies from Indonesia, Brazil, and India. [37][38][39][40] Our results also showed that body function, activity limitation, and participation restriction had positive correlations with age. Higher male population in leprosy cases could be attributed to differences in sociocultural behaviours between genders and life choices that would lead to higher risk of contracting the infection.…”

“…This trend has been observed in Indonesian, Indian Unfortunately, diagnostic timepoints and treatment dropout were not explored. [8,40,42] Leprosy patients with multi-bacillary type demonstrate more pronounced physical dysfunction and experience greater bodily pain when compared to the pauci-bacillary group, which primarily stems from nerve impairment in leprosy patients. [43] Multi-bacillary patients were significantly at higher risk of developing nerve-function impairment.…”