Research
Adherence
SSB intake is significantly higher in urban vs. rural areas globally (57.3% higher), with the largest disparities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, while being lower in urban areas of the Middle East/North Africa.
Urban dwellers, particularly in Africa and Asia, face higher exposure to SSBs. Focus on reducing availability and marketing in these high-density areas.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
By urbanicity, global intakes were 57.3% higher in urban (3.2) vs. rural (2.0) areas (absolute difference: +1.17)... By region, this pattern was most prominent in Sub-Saharan Africa (+2.67; +48.3%) and South Asia (+1.17; +340.6%)
Why this rating
Large observational dataset.
Source
Sugar-sweetened beverage intakes among adults between 1990 and 2018 in 185 countries
Laura Lara-Castor et al. · Nature Communications · 2023
DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41269-8
cross_sectionalCited 114×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Global sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) intake among adults increased by 16% (0.37 servings/week) between 1990 and 2018, with the most dramatic increases occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa (+81.9%) and specific high-population countries like Nigeria and Ethiopia.Good
- SSB intake is inversely correlated with national Socio-demographic Development Index (SDI) by 2018, meaning higher national development is associated with lower national SSB intake, though within lower-SDI nations, higher individual education correlates with higher intake.Good
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