Noncommunicable Disease (NCD) strategic plans in low- and lower-middle income Sub-Saharan Africa: framing and policy response
Global Health Action | Chantelle Boudreaux, Christopher Noble, Matthew M. Coates, Jason Kelley, Martin Abanda, Alexander Kintu, Amy McLaughlin, Andrew Marx, and Gene Bukhman
NCD Strategic Plans developed by countries in SSA recognize the heterogeneity of the NCD burden in this region. However, they emphasize interventions that are consistent with global strategies focused on preventing a narrower set of cardiometabolic risk factors and their associated diseases. In comparison, relatively few countries detail plans to prevent, treat, and palliate the full scope of the needs they identify. There is a need for increased support for bottom-up planning efforts to address local priorities.
The COVID-19 pandemic: a massive threat for those living with cardiovascular disease among the poorest billion
Circulation | Sheila L. Klassen, Gene F. Kwan, Gene Bukhman
Major contributors to CVD in poor countries include unrepaired congenital heart disease, rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and cardiomyopathies. Individuals with these conditions are at particularly high risk of severe complications from COVID-19 infection due to their complex intracardiac hemodynamics. As COVID-19 continues to circulate for many months to come, the global CVD community must be vocal about increasing investments in healthcare structures that care for the most vulnerable patients..
Economic Studies on Non-Communicable Diseases and Injuries in India:
A Systematic Review
Applied Health Economics and Health Policy | Indrani Gupta, Arjun Roy
The burden from non-communicable diseases and injuries (NCDI) in India is increasing rapidly. With low public sector investment in the health sector generally, and a high financial burden on households for treatment, it is important that economic evidence is used to set priorities in the context of NCDI.
Effective interventions for unintentional injuries: a systematic review and mortality impact assessment among the poorest billion
The Lancet | Andres I Vecino-Ortiz, Aisha Jafri, Adnan A Hyder
As a result of the rapid wave of urbanisation, demo-graphic and nutritional transitions, economic growth, and technological change, the epidemiological profile of most countries has been moving from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases and injuries. However, while the global burden of injuries has decreased by 31% in the past 20 years, the injury burden due to road injuries and falls in sub-Saharan Africa and southeast Asia has increased by 10–50%, showing how improvements in the injury burden have not been equitably distributed. Specifically, unintentional injuries are a growing concern. Deaths caused by unintentional injuries comprise 10% of all deaths in low-income and middle-income countries, compared with intentional injuries that cause 3% of all deaths in these countries.
Endemic cardiovascular diseases of the poorest billion
Circulation | Gene F. Kwan, Bongani M. Mayosi, Ana O. Mocumbi, J. Jaime Miranda, Majid Ezzati, Yogesh Jain, Gisela Robles Aguilar, Emelia J. Benjamin, S. V. Subramanian, and Gene Bukhman
The poorest billion people are distributed throughout the world, though most are concentrated in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) data can be sparse in low- and middle-income countries beyond urban centers. Despite this urban bias, CVD registries from the poorest countries have long revealed a predominance of nonatherosclerotic stroke, hypertensive heart disease, nonischemic and Chagas cardiomyopathies, rheumatic heart disease, and congenital heart anomalies, among others. Ischemic heart disease has been relatively uncommon. Here, we summarize what is known about the epidemiology of CVDs among the world’s poorest people and evaluate the relevance of global targets for CVD control in this population.
Reframing NCDs and injuries for the poorest billion: a Lancet Commission
The Lancet | Gene Bukhman, Ana Olga Mocumbi, Richard Horton
In the post-2015 era, the Sustainable Development Goals have come to include non-communicable diseases (NCDs). And yet the world's poorest people are still unlikely to benefit from this expanded focus. Despite efforts by WHO and many others, the development community has mainly understood NCDs as a problem linked to aging, urbanisation, affluence, and lifestyle choices. This perspective is also reflected in some of the agreed global targets for NCD control.
Endemic diabetes in the world's poorest billion
The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology | Gene Bukhman, Charlotte Bavuma, Crispin Gishoma, Neil Gupta, Gene F Kwan, Richard Laing, David Beran
This commentary, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, outlines the imperative to extend global research, access to medicines, and care delivery efforts to better address the diabetes burden of the world’s poorest patients. The article also announces two current initiatives supported by Helmsley Charitable Trust, including PIH’s efforts to improve integrated diabetes care in Haiti and Rwanda.
80 under 40 by 2020: an equity agenda for NCDs and injuries
The Lancet | Agnes Binagwaho, Marie Aimee Muhimpindu, Gene Bukhman
As an outcome of the 2013 NCD Synergies Conference hosted by the Rwanda Ministry of Health in Kigali, this statement calls on countries and experts to join Hon. Min. Binagwaho's 80x40x20 agenda targeted at reducing premature mortality from all NCDs and injuries by 80% in individuals younger than 40 years by the year 2020.