How will our generation tackle Non-Communicable Diseases?
by Bianca Nguyen on September 30, 2011
As a result of a successful campaign by the NCD Alliance that was launched in May 2009, the United Nations held a High Level Meeting focused on Non-Communicable Diseases on September 19 - 20, 2011 in New York City. According to NCD Alliance, the hope for The NCD Summit was to "raise the profile of NCDs on the global stage, mobilize the international community to take action, secure the commitment of Heads of State to lead the cross-government effort necessary to reverse the epidemic, and send a clear message to donors and funders." With a network of over 1,000 students and 46 partner communities, GlobeMed recognizes the potential for a global youth movement mobilizing around Non-Communicable Diseases.
Below, Alyssa Smaldino, one of GlobeMed's Program Directors, summarizes her experience in NYC during the UN Summit, and issues a call to action for youth around the world to take a stand against NCDs.
On September 18th, I had the privilege of joining approximately 25 other young professionals at a Forum for Action on NCDs in New York City, which was organized by the Young Professionals--Chronic Disease Network and AYUDA. The purpose of the forum was to provide a space where young people from across the world could join together to set an action agenda for how our generation will tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The following day, September 19th, was the UN High Level Meeting on NCDs--only the second ever on health (the first focused on HIV/AIDS in 2001 and resulted in the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria).
Energy was high after my first session of laughing yoga, and we were all prepared to spend our Sunday expressing our fears, ambitions, and priorities around the issue of NCDs. To first provide some background, NCDs are an incredibly serious issue today. In fact, they make up the vast majority of morbidity and mortality burdens across the world. Eighty percent of that burden occurs in poor communities, bringing to light the fact that NCDs are not at all diseases of the rich. Rather, they are diseases of humanity.
For weeks since the UN High Level Meeting we have been waiting for an announcement about the next big global fund that will tackle this issue. Yet, it has not come. At the High Level Meeting, Andrew Lansley, Secretary of State for Health of the UK, stated that countries "cannot delay developing our health systems", and implied doing so by "recruiting and training health-care personnel to assess and treat non-communicable diseases, ensuring universal access to care, as well as drawing on the experiences of global programmes to treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria to strengthen capacity for research and development (1)." All in attendance seemed to agree, but few seemed to have a clear plan for how to do that efficiently, with a moderate budget, on a global scale.
But we have to ask ourselves one question: when has improving public health ever been easy? When has it been done without collective action--especially from young people? Never. We can't let this conversation die in the halls of the United Nations Headquarters. Going forward, we need to let our voices be heard and we need to stand up for our friends, family members, partners, and future generations so that NCDs do not kill 35 million people a year, as they did in 2005 (2). Follow the debate and join other passionate and driven youth from around the world by joining the Youth and NCDs Facebook Group at and the NCD Youth Action Agenda Google Group. Also be sure to raise awareness on the key dates listed below! The world rallied for HIV/AIDS and saved millions of lives. There's no reason we can't do the same for NCDs!
1 http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/ga11146.doc.htm
2 World Health Organization: Chronic diseases - http://www.who.int/topics/chronic_diseases/en/, accessed 21 March 2011.
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