NCD
How DOES Coca-Cola do it?
Here’s a difficult question: “Why is it that we can buy Coca-Cola beverages virtually anywhere when basic health products like oral rehydration therapy or condoms are unavailable in many of those same places?” “Difficult, difficult, lemon difficult”, as Simon Foster might say.
Posted in Multinational corporations, NCD | 2 Comments »
25 by 25: The New 3 by 5?
The 65th session of the World Health Assembly concluded on Saturday 26 May. The discussions over the week had a clear focus on non-communicable diseases, in part due to the release of the World Health Statistics, which noted that one in three adults have high blood pressure, and one in ten have diabetes. In light [...]
Posted in NCD, WHO | No Comments »
Winners and losers in the global health aid money-go-round
Ok, so you’ll have been following all the news on the GAVI replenishment and will know that the UK has pledged (pledged, mind you, not given – and pledges aren’t always met) a very generous $1.3bn between now and 2015 to help this public-private partnership support vaccines for pneumococcol disease and rotavirus (amongst others). In [...]
Posted in Aid, Global Fund, HIV/AIDS, malaria, NCD | 9 Comments »
Getting the Politics Right for the September 2011 UN NCD Meeting
Last October I blogged about the United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and just recently Peter Piot, J. Stephen Morrison and I wrote the paper ‘Getting the Politics Right for the September 2011 UN NCD Meeting’.
Posted in NCD, UN | No Comments »
Health Financing: What Role does the International Community Play?
In this month’s Health Policy & Planning, Eduardo Gomez and my paper on health financing in Brazil, Russia and India is published. Given that Amanda Glassman at the Center for Global Development and others have pointed out that this is the year where attention will be put on donor aid flows and domestic financing, I [...]
Posted in Aid, Foundations, Global Fund, HIV/AIDS, malaria, NCD, UN, WHO, World Bank | No Comments »
The UN High-Level Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases
In September 2011, the UN will host the first Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases. While many are celebrating that NCDs have finally been recognized as a global problem, others have concerns that there is not enough time to get all the necessary pieces in place for a successful outcome.
Posted in Aid, NCD, UN | 7 Comments »
‘Culture’ as an Excuse in Nutrition Policy
The funny thing about the concept of ‘culture’ is the degree to which anthropologists (experts on culture) detest the term. From my years studying medical anthropology I also cringe whenever I see a report blaming culture for lack of progress in health. This occurs in all areas of global health, including nutrition. What role does [...]
Posted in Aid, NCD, Nutrition, World Bank | 11 Comments »
Myth: Chronic Diseases are Diseases of Affluence
I was recently talking with a friend in the U.S. who noted that there’s still the popular perception that chronic diseases are a reflection of affluence and only a problem for developed countries. This could not be farther from the truth. Arguably the most significant health challenge for developing countries in the 21st century will [...]
Posted in Aid, NCD | 2 Comments »
Alcohol abuse: If we can’t measure it, does it not exist?
Alcohol abuse in global health has been a long-time elephant in the room. It was particularly exciting then, that at this year’s World Health Assembly, a resolution was passed to ‘reduce the harmful use of alcohol.’ But in the discussion by experts about alcohol abuse, I am continually surprised to find almost no attention given [...]
Posted in alcohol, NCD, WHO | 2 Comments »
Why are Indians getting fatter?
It is hard to disagree that Indians are getting fatter. While the child undernutrition rate seems stuck at 40%, the percentage of the population overweight and obese is on the rise. A large part of the story of overweight and obesity has to do with the nutrition transition described by Barry Popkin and others- basically [...]
Posted in NCD | 3 Comments »
