Health Consumers and Global Non-Communicable Disease Guidelines
Leveraging health consumers to achieve global NCD goals
In December 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) now account for 7 of the top 10 causes of death globally. The five major NCDs (cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, cancer, diabetes, and mental illness) are projected to incur an economic cost of $47 trillion by 2030. That’s more than twice the current GDP of the United States.
Many of the gains made in reducing the risk of death from NCDs have been lost over the past two decades. Between 2000 and 2019, deaths due to ischemic heart disease rose by almost 30%. Diabetes made its entry into the top 10 list, with deaths rising by a whopping 70% since 2000. This problematic rising trend is set to continue. But despite these staggering numbers, there remains a chronic underinvestment in tackling the current and future burden of NCDs. According to the NCD Alliance, only less than 2% of donor assistance for health is directed towards NCDs.
Although there’s still a long way to go regarding resource allocation to tackle NCDs, they have gained attention in the global health avenue in the last decade. After HIV/AIDS, NCDs became only the second health issue to be addressed in a United Nations General Assembly. Interestingly, the December 2020 press release by the WHO came out in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is related to an infectious respiratory disease. This recent global attention underscores the urgency of the problem. Thus, we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to fight the myriad global health threats posed by NCDs — an approach that involves actors at the international, national, local, and community levels.
In 2017, the World Health Assembly endorsed a set of “Best Buys” and other recommended interventions for the prevention and management of NCDs. Global estimates suggest that investing in these best buys yields a return of at least $7 for every $1 invested by 2030. This would equate to $350 billion in economic growth between 2018 and 2030. So while Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, emphasized the importance of strong primary healthcare in combating NCDs, there is another stakeholder that can play a key role in the fight against NCDs: the health consumer.
Leveraging the empowered health consumer
With the radical technological advancements over the past few years, the health consumer has drastically evolved into an active co-owner of their health and wellness journey. From a healthcare provider-perspective, NCDs are challenging to manage because of their chronic nature. A large part of the patient’s journey happens outside hospital and clinic settings. Thus, the empowered health consumer is vital in ensuring effective self-monitoring and disease self-management.
Many NCDs are also lifestyle-related, so the empowered health consumer, who is armed with the tools to make healthy lifestyle choices, can play a crucial role in preventive medicine. These tools can range from rudimentary health information websites to wearable devices. This can relieve the strain on already under-resourced healthcare systems. Hence, the health consumer can be instrumental in achieving NCD-related targets and is taking centre-stage in guidelines and targets established by global organizations.
The health consumer at the intersection of NCD-related targets and guidelines
Upon recognizing the dire need to address the growing burden of NCDs, global organizations such as the WHO, United Nations (through the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs), and NCD Alliance have rolled out NCD-related guidelines to follow and targets to achieve.
The SDGs are a collection of 17 interconnected goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. These goals aim to serve as a blueprint to achieve a sustainable future for all by 2030. Each goal has a set of targets under it, along with indicators to track the progress of achieving each target.
SDG 3 aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”, and SDG 3.4 is the NCD-specific target under this overarching goal. SDG 3.4 is as follows: “By 2030, reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being”. Two keywords to note here are “prevention” and “treatment”. Hence, the goal recognizes that tackling NCDs needs intervention at different points in the health consumer journey.
The world has dramatically urbanized in the past few decades, and this has encouraged the adoption of increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. The deadly combination of sedentary habits and calorie-loaded, nutrient-deficient diets is linked with the incidence of NCDs such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Thus, the promotion of healthy lifestyle choices at the grassroots level is imperative for preventing the health consumer from becoming a patient living with an NCD.
Over the years, the WHO released global strategies and guidelines to address the key risk factors for NCDs. The most recent one is the “WHO Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour”. Again released in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the guidelines emphasize the importance of regular physical activity to prevent and manage NCDs and improve mental health outcomes. They recommend types and frequencies of physical activities for people (or health consumers) of different age groups. Interestingly, there are separate recommendations for those living with chronic conditions such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Rather than focusing on the healthcare delivery aspects, these guidelines exemplify the people-centric approach that is increasingly being taken to combat the global NCD burden.
Circling back to the SDGs, there is one SDG target that crosscuts NCD guidelines and targets and is now more relevant than ever: SDG 9.c. This target states to “significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in the least developed countries by 2020”. In the context of NCDs, the focus on less developed countries is important as almost 80% of deaths due to NCDs happen in these countries.
It’s now the beginning of 2021, and there has been significant progress in achieving this goal. In 2019, it was estimated that 96.5% of the entire global population was covered by at least 2G network. As we described in a previous blog post, technology in the hands of the health consumer can be powerful in enabling them to track their preventive health behaviours, improve disease management, and enhance treatment outcomes. For example, wearable devices and a plethora of mobile apps make it much easier for the health consumer to track physical activity levels and adhere to exercise regimens. Thus, with the help of tech tools, the health consumer can follow lifestyle-related health guidelines put forward by global organizations such as the WHO.
The NCD Alliance recognized the power of another tech-driven tool to drive change on NCDs: social media. The organization published a guide for stakeholders in the NCD landscape on how to leverage social media platforms. This is a testament of how global NCD guidelines and reports are taking a health consumer-focused lens to increase knowledge and change behaviours related to the NCDs.
There’s still a long way to go
2030. That’s the year by which the world needs to slash premature mortality due to NCDs by a third, according to SDG 3.4. It may be nine years away, but the burden of NCDs has only been rising, with no signs of a downward trend anytime soon. Although a multilateral, holistic approach is needed to tackle this rising burden, leveraging the proactive health consumer is promising in accelerating the fight against NCDs. Global organizations and national governments should put on the “health consumer cap” while planning and implementing NCD-related campaigns, interventions, and policies.
Schenelle Dlima is a Scientific Content Writer at Saathealth, an AI-powered, chronic care digital health platform.
