Noncommunicable Disease & Mental Health in Developing Countries: Part 1

Part 1. The UN NCD summit: Frustrations and Optimism.

By Alexa Zeitz

“Shocking”. This is what Richard Howitt, MEP for East of England, called the global incidence of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Howitt, who gave the welcome address that opened the Humanitarian Centre’s Post-UN Summit Conference on NCDs and Mental Health in Developing Countries on January 20^th, said he saw the U.N. Summit in September 2011 as a “trigger” for global action. He attributed the lack of mainstream attention to NCDs as a development issue to the tendency by non-specialists to see so-called “life-style diseases” as the “problem of the developed world”. What exactly the U.N. summit had triggered and how perspectives could be shifted to the developing world were the subjects of the sessions that followed Howitt’s welcoming address.

The sessions were chaired enthusiastically and energetically by Dr. Richard Smith CBE, who as Director of the UnitedHealth Chronic Disease initiative has been described as a ‘one-man NGO’. Throughout the day, introducing speakers, engaging participants and guiding the proceedings, Dr. Smith drew out reoccurring themes for further discussion.

The first session, reflecting on the UN Summit and the Global NCD Agenda, set the tone for the day-long conference, revealing the tensions between optimism and frustration that pervade current thinking about NCDs. David Stuckler, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, illustrated this when he compared the Political Declaration that was the outcome of the UN Summit on NCDs to the momentous 2001 UN Declaration of Commitment on AIDS. Stuckler’s comparison revealed the Political Declaration on NCDs to come slightly short: there was no new money committed, no targets declared and no initiatives begun. However, there is some hope in the declaration, which acknowledges the social determinants of NCDs, the importance of a whole-of-government response and the appropriateness of fiscal, regulatory and legislative measures. Stuckler argued that a social movement is now urgently needed to continue the effort.

Modi Mwatswama, International Programme Manager for the National Heart Forum, offered examples of such a social movement, including coordinating with the medical journal The Lancet on an NCD Action Group, a Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network and the Conflict of Interest Coalition. Judith Watt, Interim Director of the NCD Alliance, gave an update from the frontlines of the social movement on NCDs, including sharing a World Health Assembly resolution on targets for NCDs, agreed just that morning and conveyed to Watt by camera phone. The NCD Alliance is regrouping after the UN Summit and now focusing on the targets and indicators currently being developed at the WHO. Watt urged those attending to contact their lawmakers to pressure them to include targets on physical activity, which are currently absent.

Click Here to read PART 2