Non communicable diseases (NCDs), mainly cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung disease, are responsible for roughly two out of every three deaths today. Other NCDs, including mental illness, accidents, renal disease and dental disease, kill or maim millions more. The World Health Organization (WHO) is now putting the final touches on a draft Action Plan…

During Spring and Summer of 2012, World Health Organzation (WHO) staff and interested member states have been  at work preparing a series of documents as follow up to the September 2011 High Level Meeting on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs). They have pored through hundreds of comments, position papers, speeches and technical information to create…

Dr. Nicholas Alipui, director of programs at UNICEF, announced last week that the agency has decided to update its iconic information resource "Facts for Life" to include information about non communicable diseases (NCDs) in children and adolescents. Speaking at a Ministerial breakfast as part of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on July 6, Dr. Alipui said that by updating "Facts for Life" with information about NCDs,…

As those who have followed the United Nations proceedings on non communicable diseases (NCDs) know, one piece of unfinished business is the establishment of global targets to help quantify the global response to this increasing epidemic. On May 25, the delegates to the World Health Assembly took a large step in that direction, by agreeing to the world's first NCD target.  As widely reported,…

Global health knows no boundaries.  There are no dividing lines that respect illness and disease, nor are there places where prevention is irrelevant.  I was privileged to join a group recently who saw what a dedicated community can do to protect itself from the threat of non communicable disease, in this case the Tohono O’odham reservation in Arizona.  The Tohono O’odham Nation is composed of approximately 30,000 Native Americans,…

Public Health Institute, together with Caring and Living as Neighbors and Global Health Council, will convene a conference on "NCDs in Children and Adolescents" during March 19-20.  The conference has been sponsored by the Medtronic Foundation, …

Many global health donors are focused on providing medicines, paying for diagnostic technologies, and building hospitals and clinics in places where few health care resources exist.  These items are critical to diagnosis and care, and are relatively easy to measure.  Donors like to fund them because they can be counted and named, and their benefits are well-known. The problem is that providing for only these tangible things does not by itself build the kind of global health architecture that…

As part of the outcome of the UN High Level Meeting on NCDs, the political declaration adopted acknowledged the special challenges faced by children and youth in preventing and treating non communicable diseases, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic lung disease (including asthma). It is…

After the dust settled from the UN High Level Meeting on Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in September, the really hard work began.  Delegates from around the globe who had heard speech after speech about the depth of the problem, returned to capitals and began to grapple with their own health planning processes. In many places, there is a clear consensus on the need to put national programs in place…

Because climate change is already affecting health in the United States and around the world, we all have a stake in the negotiations now underway in Durban, South Africa at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  Public Health Institute's Center for Public Health and Climate Change has developed a one-stop web presence for updates from COP17, and related news and…