valentineghanem-bit/spatial-ncd-burden-ghana

Noncommunicable Disease Burden and Determinants in Ghana: National Epidemiological Trends and District-Level Structural Risk-Vulnerability Mapping # Noncommunicable Disease Burden and Determinants in Ghana: National Epidemiological Trends and District-Level Structural Risk-Vulnerability Mapping **Author:** Valentine Golden Ghanem | Ghana COCOBOD Cocoa Clinic, Accra, Ghana **ORCID:** 0009-0002-8332-0220 **Affiliation:** Ghana COCOBOD Cocoa Clinic, Accra, Ghana · University of Cape Coast, Ghana **Reporting standard:** STROBE · RECORD-Spatial · TRIPOD-AI **Date:** 2026 **Status:** Manuscript in preparation ## 1. Abstract Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) account for the majority of premature mortality risk in sub-Saharan Africa, yet district-level NCD surveillance data remain unavailable across most of the region, including Ghana. This study bounds its analysis to what national and district-level evidence actually support, rather than extrapolating estimates the data cannot provide. Two independent data layers were analysed, never statistically joined. A national panel (WHO Global Health Observatory and GISAH, 1980–2022) tracked NCD trends via Mann-Kendall tests and modelled year-over-year change in the 30–70y multi-NCD mortality probability using Random Forest and XGBoost. A district structural vulnerability index (261 districts, 2021 census) was built via principal component analysis on six determinants, then tested for spatial clustering via Getis-Ord Gi* and Moran's I. Premature NCD mortality declined over 2000–2021 (tau=−0.73, p Ghanem, V.G. (2026). *Noncommunicable Disease Burden and Determinants in Ghana: National Epidemiological Trends and District-Level Structural Risk-Vulnerability Mapping* [Software]. GitHub. github.com ```bibtex @software{ghanem2026spatialncd, author = {Ghanem, Valentine Golden}, title = {Noncommunicable Disease Burden and Determinants in Ghana: National Epidemiological Trends and District-Level Structural Risk-Vulnerability Mapping}, year = {2026}, url = {github.com } `` …