The Bambuí Health and Aging study (BHAS): prevalence of risk factors and use of preventive health care services

Abstract

For a long time it was believed that the kinds of risk factors that we found in the urban section of the municipality of Bambuí were public health problems only in large Brazilian cities. Around 72% of the municipalities in Brazil have < or = 20,000 inhabitants, and these smaller municipalities contain some 19% of the country's entire population. The high prevalence of various risk factors among the older and younger adults in Bambuí indicates a great need for health promotion and disease prevention actions. More research is needed to find out whether our results in Bambuí reflect the reality of other small towns in Brazil.