Oman health: Ministry to survey more than 9,000 families for diseases

Muscat: More than 9,000 families will be surveyed in Oman as a part of a national plan to launch an accurate database on non-communicable diseases and nutrition, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has said.
As part of the exercise, initiated by the ministry in co-ordination with the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund, officials will visit selected families across all governorates of the Sultanate for the survey.
All the 9,053 families, who have been selected randomly, will be surveyed for non-communicable diseases, and 4,000 of them will also be asked questions on their nutrition. This means around 823 families will be surveyed in each governorate.
The survey is expected to be completed by March.
The survey on non-communicable diseases will target people over the age of 15 while the one on nutrition survey will focus on children below five and females aged 15 to 49.
“The surveys will help to identify the morbidity cause, its risk factors and impact in the future,” a press release by the MoH stated.
A specialised field team is currently visiting the selected households to get their approval to participate in the national survey of nutrition by asking the authorised person within the family to complete the family and child questionnaires, as well as the individual questionnaire (for women of reproductive age). After receiving approval, blood samples of children and females for some families will be obtained.
The MoH has urged everyone to co-operate with the teams in order to obtain the required data. Oman’s Studies and Research Centre will later conduct the national survey of non-communicable diseases and tobacco from January to March 2017.