The Emergence of Non-communicable Disease in Indonesia

Based on data from the Indonesian Ministry of Health Information Center, the estimated population of Indonesia in 2016 was approximately 258,704,986 people, consisted of 129,988,690 men and 128,716,296 women. This number of Indonesian population represents young population since the proportion of population aged 0-14 years is more than that aged >14 years. Meanwhile, the proportion of population aged 50 years and above is significantly reduced, which is thought to be due to high mortality rate in the middle-aged population. The mortality rate in Indonesia is dominated by non-communicable diseases (NCD). Alteration in environment, technology and lifestyle have changed the pattern of disease in Indonesia to be dominated by NCD such as DM, heart disease, dyslipidemia, obesity, kidney disease, lung disease, and malignancy. According to the 2014 Indonesian Sample Registration System, the 10 most common diseases were stroke (21.1%), heart disease (12.9%), diabetes mellitus (6.7%), tuberculosis (5.7%), complications of high blood pressure (5.3%), chronic lung disease (4.9%), liver disease (2.7%), traffic accidents (2.6%), pneumonia (2.1%), and combined diarrhea and gastroenteritis due to infection (1.9%). Furthermore, according to Indonesia Basic Health Research 2018, most of NCD such as cancer, stroke, kidney disease, joint disease, DM, heart disease, hypertension, and overweight/ obesity, showed an increasing trend compared to the previous report in 2013. Non-communicable diseases are chronic, often asymptomatic and progressive, thus patients usually did not realize having the disease until the sign and symptoms of its complications occur. This problem drives the need of early screening for high-risk population, early treatment and periodic monitoring. Furthermore, ongoing epidemiological studies are also done to evaluate both established and unknown risk factors, pattern of non-communicable disease development in certain area and the treatment response.