**6. Conclusions**

In the studies reported among various communities, low education and employment status were observed as well as poverty in a large majority of the respondents. The scientific literature shows a strong association between poverty and CVD [163]. Poverty is an underlying factor of food insecurity that often results in poor dietary intakes that were observed in our communities. Many of the dietary CVD risk factors were present in large proportions of the communities. The literature is clear

**59**

**Author details**

Wilna Oldewage-Theron1

State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

and Christa Grobler2

2 Vaal University of Technology, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

\*Address all correspondence to: christa@vut.ac.za

provided the original work is properly cited.

1 Texas Tech University, Lubbock, United States of America and University of Free

© 2021 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

\*

*Double Burden of Poverty and Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Low-Resource Communities…*

that these dietary factors may be associated with some of the risk factors for CVD, such as obesity, hypertension and the biochemical risk factors for CVD. Irreversible and potentially reversible and physiological (low income) risk markers were found to prevail. A summary of the elevated cardiovascular risk markers in our study is schematically presented in **Figure 2**. Multiple preventable CVR markers were present among the children, adults and elderly in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. It can thus be concluded that a double burden of poverty and risk of CVD exists across the different age groups and geographical locations in these resource-poor communities. Prevention of CVD can be achieved through nutrition education and awareness programs. It is recommended that policy makers give serious attention to CVR and screening should be done from an early age to identify those at risk and

We thank the National Research Foundation (NRF) and Vaal University of Technology (VUT) for financial support. Replamed (Cornel Pretorius) provided technical support, Prof A Egal, Centre of Sustainable Livelihoods (VUT) staff member and team members from the CARE research group for their operational

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95992*

implement appropriate interventions.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

support.

*Double Burden of Poverty and Cardiovascular Disease Risk among Low-Resource Communities… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95992*

that these dietary factors may be associated with some of the risk factors for CVD, such as obesity, hypertension and the biochemical risk factors for CVD. Irreversible and potentially reversible and physiological (low income) risk markers were found to prevail. A summary of the elevated cardiovascular risk markers in our study is schematically presented in **Figure 2**. Multiple preventable CVR markers were present among the children, adults and elderly in rural, peri-urban and urban areas. It can thus be concluded that a double burden of poverty and risk of CVD exists across the different age groups and geographical locations in these resource-poor communities. Prevention of CVD can be achieved through nutrition education and awareness programs. It is recommended that policy makers give serious attention to CVR and screening should be done from an early age to identify those at risk and implement appropriate interventions.
