Countries & territories / Lesser Antilles
The highest crude adult diabetes prevalence in the Americas, and the region's regulatory capital.
Population 1,367,764 (2025) · Part of the PCRA Group's UK, US and Caribbean network.
- Capital
- Port of Spain
- Main languages
- English
- Currency
- Trinidad and Tobago dollar (TTD)
- Population
- 1,367,764 (2025)
- 30.3%
- Crude adult diabetes prevalence — the highest in the Americas
- 1.37m
- Population, with roughly equal African- and South Asian-descent communities
- 81.5%
- Of all deaths are from non-communicable disease
Why Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago combines the most extreme diabetes burden in the Western Hemisphere with a genuinely diverse population — roughly equal African- and South Asian-descent communities — and it hosts the Caribbean's regional public health and regulatory institutions. For cardiometabolic programmes that need both prevalence and ancestry breadth in one country, there is nothing comparable in the region.
The disease burden
On WHO's crude 18+ basis, Trinidad and Tobago records 30.3% adult diabetes prevalence — the highest in the Americas — rising to 34.0% among adults aged 30 and over. Two caveats we would rather state than be asked. The crude estimate carries a wide confidence interval, so we quote it with the interval rather than as a point estimate. And the ranking is basis-dependent: on the 30+ measure Puerto Rico is marginally higher. What is not in dispute is that Trinidad sits in the top tier of diabetes prevalence globally, on any basis.
Sites and infrastructure
- Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mount Hope — the principal tertiary and teaching complex
- Port of Spain General Hospital and San Fernando General Hospital — major acute referral centres
- Sangre Grande Hospital, Mount Hope Women's Hospital, Scarborough General (Tobago) — all UWI clinical teaching sites
- UWI St Augustine, Faculty of Medical Sciences — a national university medical school
- CARPHA headquarters, Port of Spain — the Caribbean Public Health Agency, and with it the Caribbean Regulatory System
Research heritage
An ECHORN study site — the NIH-funded Eastern Caribbean Health Outcomes Research Network, 2,961 participants enrolled 2013–2018 with Yale and UWI Cave Hill. Host country to CARPHA and the Caribbean Regulatory System since 2017, through which 353 medical products have been recommended for market authorisation and 742 safety reports distributed regionally. Trinidad has institutional depth rather than a single landmark cohort.
Regulatory & ethics
- Chemistry, Food and Drugs Division and the Drug Inspectorate Division, Ministry of Health — together the national medicines regulatory authority under the Food and Drugs Act 1960
- Ministry of Health ethics approval, plus the UWI St Augustine Campus Research Ethics Committee
- Host to CARPHA and the Caribbean Regulatory System — regional medicines assessment and the VigiCarib pharmacovigilance network
The honest position: PAHO records that no legal provision requires clinical trial authorisation by the medicines regulator, and no statutory ethics-committee requirement exists. In practice, ethics approval and Ministry no-objection are the operative gates. Being co-located with CARPHA is an advantage for pharmacovigilance and regional coordination — but note that the Caribbean Regulatory System does not authorise clinical trials and never has. Anyone telling you otherwise has misread its remit.
Data quality: Moderate — good institutional and regulatory presence and a solid teaching-hospital network, but the headline diabetes estimate carries a very wide confidence interval.
How this site fits the network
Anchor site — established research infrastructure, national medical school, documented trial or cohort history.
Our Trinidad and Tobago operation is contracted, trained and monitored under the same quality system as our UK and US sites. One master service agreement covers all three regions, one budget negotiation, one set of payment terms. Sites in this network can absorb enrolment from under-recruiting UK or US centres without a new vendor qualification cycle.
Key indicators
| Indicator | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Adult obesity (BMI ≥30) | 31.0% | Crude, adults 18+, 2022 |
| Adults overweight or obese | 61.5% | Crude, adults 18+, 2022 |
| Adult diabetes | 30.3% | Crude, adults 18+, 2022 |
| Hypertension | 42.4% | Age-standardised, 30–79, 2019 |
| — of whom controlled | 20.9% | Age-standardised, 2019 |
| NCDs as share of all deaths | 81.5% | 2019 |
| Premature NCD mortality (30–70) | 20.3% | Probability of death, 2021 |
All figures are WHO Global Health Observatory modelled estimates on one consistent basis: obesity, overweight and diabetes are crude prevalence, adults 18+, 2022; hypertension and control are age-standardised, adults 30–79, 2019; NCD share of deaths is 2019; premature NCD mortality is the probability of dying between 30 and 70 from a major NCD, 2021. Estimates carry confidence intervals — we quote intervals on request and always where they are wide.
Member sites in Trinidad and Tobago
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