Global Challenge: HMG7120 Non-Communicable Disease Policy Review

This report provides a comprehensive review of the evolution of global policies on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) over the past decade. It examines the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in setting global targets, coordinating mechanisms, and integrating NCDs into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report analyzes key issues such as global targets, coordination, and monitoring, and the impact of NCDs in various countries. The report analyzes the nine global targets set by WHO for 2025, including reducing mortality rates from major NCDs, decreasing harmful alcohol consumption, increasing physical activity, reducing sodium intake, minimizing tobacco use, lowering blood pressure, halting the rise of diabetes and obesity, and improving access to drug therapy and essential medicines. The report also explores the coordination and monitoring mechanisms implemented to track progress, including the Global NCD Progress Monitor. Furthermore, the report highlights challenges in policy formulation and implementation and offers recommendations for future strategies to address the growing global burden of NCDs. The report provides recommendations to address the challenges, including the importance of national policy, and concludes with a summary of the findings.

HMG7120 Global Challenge: Non-Communicable Disease
Assessment 3
Topic: Policy Review
Words: 3000
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Review of the evolution of global policy on Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) prevention
and control from a public health perspective over the past 10 years.........................................3
1. Global targets:.................................................................................................................3
Key issues that need to be addressed.....................................................................................4
2. Coordination and monitoring mechanism:......................................................................7
3. NCDs in the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs):...............................................9
Recommendation to address the challenges.............................................................................12
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13
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Introduction
In the world, the problem related to NCD or Non-Communicable Diseases is increasing day-
by-day or year by year. The cardiovascular disease, cancer, heart-related disease, diabetes and
many other diseases mainly fall under this category. Many people die every year and fall sick
for these diseases. However, the World Health Organization or WHO takes some serious
steps in order to control this and to save the people from NCD. However, many governments
of the different countries also support WHO in this move. This report reviews the evolution
of policy development regarding NCDs using three areas global targets, coordination and
monitoring mechanism and NCDs in the sustainable development goals.
Review of the evolution of global policy on Non-Communicable Disease (NCD)
prevention and control from a public health perspective over the past 10 years
1. Global targets:
NCD or Non-Communicable Diseases become one of the most essential disease-related
problems to be concentrated. However, for this, many action plans and policies are
implemented in order to stop or decrease the effect of Non-Communicable Diseases. The
World Health Organization or WHO has set up a Global Monitoring Framework system for
tracking the effect of implementing the "NCD Global Action Plan". This system helps the
organization to monitor the progress and in the reporting process and with the help of all
these things WHO has set up 9 global targets in the case of NCDs by the year 2025, along
with a baseline in the year 2010 (Who, 2010). According to the WHO, the government gave
an initial push to set up some goals like,
1. To set up some national targets in the case of NCDs by the year 2025 and which is mainly
based upon the national circumstances like circumstances of Australia;
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2. To develop some robust national plans related to NCD for reducing the risk factor related
to exposure and enabling a high quality of health systems to achieve those targets by 2025
successfully;
3. The organization also has to monitor the results or the outcomes in order to measure results
to make the Global Action Plan successful (Who, 2010).
Key issues that need to be addressed
The 9 global targets and the evolution of the global policies related to these targets are
analysed as follows:
Target 1: The central NCD diseases are cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory
disease, diabetes. These diseases are the main reason behind the death of maximum people.
Therefore, the target is to reduce the death percentage by 25% because of these diseases by
2025, which has a baseline of the year 2010.
Issue: The mortality data of the year 2012 show that the effect of NCD is present in all the
countries, but the major death reports due to NCD comes from the low to medium earning
countries. In these countries, special treatment may be allotted in order to succeed in the
target (Who, 2017).
Target 2: minimising the negative impact of the alcohol consumption near about 10% in the
national context
Issue: In the year 2012, the total number of 3.3 million death happened, and 5.1% of people
became disabled due to the use of harmful alcohol. The total alcohol consumption per person
over the age of 15 in the year 2010 was measured and estimated at the level of 6.2 litres of
pure alcohol. However, after the implementation of this target, 76 countries were signed in
policy, and 52 countries already have taken significant steps to make the target possible
(Who, 2017). 160 states who are the member of the WHO organization also issued an age
limit strictly in the case of drinking alcohol.
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Target 3: A relative reduction of 10% in the prevalence of insufficient physical activity.
Issue: Lack of physical activity has a significant contribution to the death result, as for these
69.3 million deaths happen DALYs every year. According to WHO the an individual should
have to spend 150 minutes for their physical activity in every week to minimise the chances
of breast cancer, diabetes, heart disease. In the year 2010, 23% of adults of the age 18 and
above were affected by the insufficient physical activity and 81% of peoples of the age 11-17
years were affected in this, in the whole world. WHO recommended all the girls and the boys
to be physically active for 60 minutes a day at least (Apps.who, 2018).
Target 4: Reduction in the sodium intake minimum 30%
Issue: excessive amount of sodium intake can be a significant cause of cardiovascular
disease and hypertension. In the whole world, around 1.7 million people died every year due
to cardiovascular disease, which occurred due to the presence of sodium in excessive amount
in the body. According to current estimates, the rate of sodium intake is 10gm per day, but
according to WHO the safe limit of sodium in taking is less than 5gm per day. The countries
took some steps, like decreased the rate of sodium in the foods and took some steps to
educate the consumers in order to achieve the target (Riley et al., 2016).
Target 5: Minimising the tobacco use of 15+ age by 30%
Issue: It is estimated that in the current situation approximately, 6 million people die in the
whole world just because of the use of tobacco along with 600000 deaths due to the exposure
related event in the second-hand smoke. To protect peoples from the second-hand smoke, the
countries take legislation called "100% smoke-free", and they enforce bans on the use of
tobacco in order to make the target possible. Due to these initiatives, considerable progress
has been noticed among these countries. In 2013, 95 countries implemented the plan "best
buy" in order to make the target possible (Kontiset al., 2015).
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Target 6: A relative reduction in the prevalence of the raised blood pressure, or contain
prevalence of the raised blood pressure by 25%, according to the national circumstances.
Issue: According to the measurement of DALYs in the year 2010, 9.4 million deaths
occurred just because of raised blood pressure and the disease burden of about 7% took place
due to this. If it left in this situation or in the uncontrolled situation, then hypertension will
become the reason of stroke, and renal failure or blindness or any other disease also can take
place. However, 18% of people over the age of 18 are suffering from this problem (Mendis et
al., 2015). Government of countries needs to establish some programs in order to make these
figures much better.
Target 7: Halt the rise in the level of diabetes and obesity.
Issue: Obesity certainly promotes diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension and many
more. In the year 2014, 11% men and 15% of women of the age 18 or above were affected in
obesity. In the year 2013, as per the report at age of 5, near about 42 million children are
suffering from overweight. Nearly 9% of the people are affected by the diabetes in 2014
(Ewenet al., 2017).
However, losing weight can be the foremost way to reduce the chances of affecting by the
diabetes and proper physical activity could also be beneficial. However, the governments of
some countries already took some initiative to aware the people about the dangerous facts of
obesity to make the target successful.
Target 8: At least 50% of the eligible people can receive drug therapy and related counselling
in order to prevent stroke and heart disease.
Issue: In the year of 2012, the main cause of death has been identified due to the
cardiovascular diseases and near about 17.5 million people has been died or 46% of the NCD
death. Among which, 7.4 million death occurred just because of heart attack and 6.7 million
death occurred just because of the stroke (Bilano et al., 2015). However, the governments
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took approach by improving the coverage event of drug treatment and the counselling in
people. It is an affordable initiative too.
Target 9: An 80% availability of affordable and underlying technologies and essential
medicines, which includes generic medicine also required for the treatment of major NCD
diseases in both private and public facility.
This target contains the steps in which essential technologies, the essential medicines will be
available at a higher number, and it will play an important role to prevent some significant
NCD diseases like cardiovascular disease, asthma and diabetes. The essential medicines
include aspirin, angiotensin and others. The governments also took some initiatives to
increase the supply of medicine and the technology and to increase the number of health care
centres, which have a profound and long-lasting effect upon society (World Health
Organization, 2018).
2. Coordination and monitoring mechanism:
Coordination and monitoring system is also a necessary system, which plays a significant role
to detect the progression of the targets and the other things. In May of 2015, WHO released a
technical note, which includes the commitments of the UN outcome achieved so far (Salinas,
and Kones, 2018).
The year 2011 and the UN outcome of the year 2014, mainly on the topic of NCD. The
organization got involved with some countries in order to help in their initiative “best buy”,
like Australia in order to control the NCD and its causes. The technical note was on the topic
of progress monitor. However, the progress monitor gives data on the basis of 19 indicators.
All the details are present on the technical notes for all the WHO’s member states, which are
approximately 194 in number. The indicator contains time-bound target settings to reduce the
number of deaths due to NCD. On May 1, 2015, WHO published a note, which declared the
progress indicators and their details (World Health Organization, 2018).
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In September 2015, WHO launched its first global NCD progress monitor at the UN General
Assembly (2015). In January and may of the year 2016, WHO described all the developments
and the findings related to this topic from the first official report in A69/10. WHO also
described the each and every details about the contours related to the progress report because
of the UN General Assembly in November 2017 in the form of a report, Annex 7 of A69/10.
This incident highlighted the matter of the indicators which are included in the technical note
of the WHO, which was published in the year of 2015. In May 2017, the World Health
Assembly mainly looked after in the update related matter of the best buy initiative and
looked after in all other relative and recommended interventions related to NCD (Tolley et
al., 2016).
In September of the year 2017, WHO updated their technical note to make the updates of the
best buys relevant enough and endorsed in May of the year 2017. On 18 September of the
year 2017, WHO released an updated version of the progress monitor in the name of Global
NCD Progress Monitor. This launching event was done in a side event of the start of the
General Debate of the session number 72 of the UN General Assembly (World Health
Organization, 2017).
WHO played a significant role in the whole event related to monitoring the progress. This
kind of progress monitor mainly formed and published in order to decrease the rate of death
due to NCD (Juma et al., 2018). However, the progress monitor also helps the government or
the related organizations to decrease the rate of cancer, heart disease and cardiovascular
disease and many others just with the help of these progress monitors. So that, monitors play
their role, and the monitor mainly relies upon the indicators, which mainly indicate every
detail, related to the NCD or NCD causing agents. With the help of these tools, the
government of the country along with some organizations can take some strict initiatives in
order to decrease the rate of death due to the NCD (Ferguson et al., 2017).
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3. NCDs in the Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs):
The disease and the death rate are higher and higher day by day due to the presence of NCDs,
and it is mainly recognized by the United Nations and is addressed by the Sustainable
Developmental Goals (SDGs) in order to achieve the result by 2030. The goals are set to
reduce the number of death due to NCD affection (Kathirvel and Singh, 2018). However, the
establishment of the national as well as global action plans and the monitoring framework
systems in order to prevent the deaths or to control the effect of NCD, and these are the major
initiatives in order to implement plans like best buy. There are some critical interventions in
order to achieve the target goal or the SDG goal 3.4, these are primary prevention from the
four common and the shared risk factors as well as to give more strength to the health
systems and other interventions (Bennett et al., 2018).
Nearly 40 million people die every year for the NCD, which is almost 70% of total death in
the whole world. There are four significant NCDs; they are cardiovascular disease, causing
17.7 million deaths per year, chronic respiratory disease, causing 3.9 million deaths per year,
cancer, causing 8.8 million deaths per year, and the diabetes mellitus, causing 1.6 million
deaths per year. These four significant NCDs are the main reason behind 80% of the total
deaths caused by NCDs (Cao et al., 2018). However, the premature deaths due to NCDs are
very common, especially in the countries with the low and middle-income range. There are
also some risk factors, which help in the function of NCDs; they are the use of tobacco,
physically inactivity, harmful and excessive use of alcohol and the unhealthy and improper
diet. However, these factors can be modified with a little extra push. However, the
Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) are set to improve these statistics and to modify
these factors into a harmless factor. Nearly 15 million premature deaths are recorded due to
the NCD in the age of 30 to 69. These premature deaths preventable and avoidable in nature
but lack of proper knowledge or lack of proper source help them to function (Hawkes, and
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Popkin, 2015). However, there is a 17% reduction noticed in the death rate due to NCD in the
year of 2015, than the previous years. However, the reduction is insufficient in nature to
achieve Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) 3.4. It is also forecasted that if the current
trends like business and others will continue in the normal state, then almost 55 million
deaths will be attributed due to the NCDs by 2030 (Nugent et al., 2018).
There are mainly 17 Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs) are present; they are as
follows:
No poverty: in 2013, 385 million children lived on the income of less than US$1.90 daily; it
is the one of the primary reason behind the so he death rate due to NCD. So that no poverty
was set as a goal, which has the power to stop the death rate or to decrease that.
Zero hunger: In the whole world, 1 in every 9 people is suffering in the nourishment related
problem. This kind of problem leads the person to the massive malnutrition, which in turn
makes the way more comfortable for the NCD to come. For that reason, it is set as a goal.
Good health and wellbeing for the people: lacking good health is one of the primary reasons
behind the 5.6 million children died in the year 2016. More than 225 million women at
present suffering in this problem. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the current position
(Norheim et al., 2015).
Quality education: There were 60 million children present in the year 2014, who were out of
school. At present still, 22 million students are out of the school facility in the 43 countries,
among which 60% are female. However, the lacking of proper education also is a reason so
quality education should be provided (Norheim et al., 2015).
Gender equality: In the year 2014, the 143 countries were signed in a record in order to keep
gender equality in their countries. Whereas, 52 countries dies not signed on that contract
paper. As a result, 150 million girls are getting married before the age of 18 (Norheim et al.,
2015).
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Clearwater and sanitation: In the world, 6 out of 10 people have the problem related to a
healthy sanitation system. It has also been recorded that 4.5 billion people are still live under
the level of a proper sanitation system. For that reason, it is also set as a goal (Hawkes, and
Popkin, 2015).
Affordable and clean energy: 57% of the total population of the world relies upon the clean
fuel services so that it is vital to supply the clean fuel at an affordable cost(Magnusson,
2019).
Decent work and economic growth: For the underdeveloped countries, their economic
growth is still under a very poor level; for that reason, many of the people cannot afford
proper foods and medicines. For that reason, improvement needed on this point (Piñeros et
al., 2017).
Industry, innovation and infrastructure: The figure of North America and Europe
amounted as US$4,621, which is far high compared to the under developing countries having
a figure of almost $100. Hence, improvements are also needed in this field (Buse et al.,
2017). The others are,
1. Reducing inequality
2. Sustainable cities and communities
3. Responsible consumption and production
4. Climate action
5. Life below water
6. Life on land
7. Peace, justice and strong institutions
8. Partnerships for the goals.
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Recommendation to address the challenges
The NCD related problem is the most serious problem in the World. The government of
countries like Australia should take various steps as soon as possible in order to prevent the
effect of NCD. The government should arrange many programs through which local people
can earn knowledge about NCD and its effects and many more things related to this. The
governments of the developed countries should take the initiative to drop down the medicines
rate and the rate of the nutritive food in the markets, so that the local people of the under
developing countries also can buy those and can get rid of the NCD related problems.
Conclusion
This report gives a deep knowledge of NCD or NON-Communicable Diseases and gives a
brief overview of the cruelty of NCD. However, the report also gives knowledge about global
targets, NCDs Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs), and about the coordination and
monitoring system. However, this report also gives a brief overview on the role of WHO, and
the governments of the various countries and how they work with each other in order to stop
the cruelty of NCD and to prevent the damage from the NCD.
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