Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on smoking, alcohol consumption, and substance use in persons aged 15 years and older in Uganda.

In Uganda, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on substance and drug use at the national level has not been studied. Our study evaluated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of smoking, alcohol consumption, and substance use among Ugandans aged ≥ 15 years based on a large, nationally representative survey. This quasi-experimental study used the Uganda National Household Survey data collected between June 2019 and November 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic as the primary exposure and outcomes as smoking, alcohol consumption, and substance use frequency before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, measured on an ordered scale (none, less than daily, and daily).

Joint regression modeling of blood pressure and associated factors among adults in Uganda: Implications for clinical practice.

Blood pressure (BP) is a repeated measurement data as multiple measurements of both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) are simultaneously obtained on a patient to determine a raised blood pressure (hypertension). In examining factors associated with hypertension, BP is measured either as a binary outcome leading to information loss and reduced statistical efficiency or as a continuous outcome based on the average of one of the measurements or a combination of the two but independently thus ignoring possible correlation. We simultaneously modeled the risk factors for increased SBP and DBP among adults in Uganda and tested the difference in the effect of certain determinants on SBP versus DBP.