Authors: Prabhat Jha, Rachel Nugent, Stéphane Verguet, David E. Bloom, Ryan Hum
Introduction
Eighty percent of global deaths from heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other chronic diseases occur in low- and middle-income countries. This paper identifies priorities for control of these chronic diseases as an input into the Copenhagen Consensus effort for 2012 (CC12). The paper and the accompanying CC12 paper on infectious disease control build on the results of the CCO8 paper on disease control (Jamison et al, 2008), and is best read as an extension of the CC08 paper on disease control.
This paper draws on the framework and findings of the Disease Control Priorities Project (DCP2). The DCP2 engaged over 350 authors and among its outputs were estimates of the cost-effectiveness of 315 interventions including about 100 interventions for chronic diseases. These estimates vary a good deal in their thoroughness and in the extent to which they provide regionally specific estimates of both cost and effectiveness. Taken as a whole, however, they represent a comprehensive canvas of chronic disease control opportunities. This paper identifies 5 key priority interventions for chronic disease in developing countries which chiefly address heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and tobacco-related respiratory disease. These interventions are chosen from among many because of their cost-effectiveness, the size of the disease burden they address, their implementation ease and other criteria.