The NCD Movement

NCDs Are Preventable

According to the WHO, eating a healthy diet, increasing physical activity and avoiding tobacco use can prevent:

  • 80% of premature heart disease
  • 80% of type 2 diabetes cases, and
  • 40% of cancers

 

According to The Lancet, physical inactivity and poor diets together cause about half of the deaths (up to 17 million) from NCDs worldwide. By championing physical activity and healthier foods, we can have a significant and positive impact on millions of lives.

Our Role in this Movement

Prevention is at the core of all our work.  

We follow the Doorstep Health Model and take prevention to people where they live, learn and work.  Our programs are educating individuals in schools, workplaces, at home and in the community on NCD prevention through healthy living.  Our programs are well thought through and we are getting results. By scaling up and establishing effective prevention programs at the population level, we believe we can make a meaningful public health impact.  

More Perspective

Global Background:

In September 2011, the UN General Assembly held the first ever UN Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases. This represented the second time in history that a health-focused UN Summit took place – the first one was on HIV/AIDS in 2001. This Summit addressed the threat posed by NCDs to low- and middle-income countries. World leaders, many of the heads of state, gathered at the United Nations in New York to find solutions to the growing danger posed by NCDs. They issued a Political Declaration that called NCDs one of the greatest health and development challenges of the century and called for coordinated global action against these very serious diseases. Subsequently, the world has committed to reducing the mortality from NCDs by 25% by the year 2025 and has made many strides in getting NCDs included in the global dialogue on the post-2015 Developmental agenda.

Indian Background:

In India, the NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) has been tasked with implementing programs in response to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Agenda, which includes the target of reducing preventable NCD deaths by a third by 2030. The Ayushman Bharat Yojana, or National Health Protection Scheme, aims to create health and wellness centres to provide primary health care and provide insurance coverage of up to ₹500,000 (~US$8000) to a family per year. The scheme currently covers in-hospital secondary and tertiary care, but mechanisms to pay for the chronic outpatient care and medication costs, the major drivers of NCD-related OOPE remain unclear.