According to international experts from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, writing in this week’s PLOS Medicine, there needs to be a major shift in attitudes to wellness research into chronic (non-communicable) diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, in developing countries. Though many scientists are declaring what needs to be done to fix these diseases, the wellbeing of people in these countries still depends on research to prioritise, evaluate, monitor and improve these health outcomes.
Shah Ebrahim, also from the South Asian Network for Chronic Disease in India, and fellow authors made a strong case for conducting research in the prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases in all countries, whether that’s high-, low- or middle-income nations. There is a mutual benefit in carrying out research into non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries, which is currently limited. Despite repeated calls for action, there is little that is actually being done to alleviate the burden that people face from these diseases.
According to the study’s authors, ‘Global and local research, particularly if it can be conducted in parallel in high-income countries and middle- and low-income countries, can provide powerful arguments for the need to act globally.’ Not only does this benefit those developing countries, but non-communicable disease research in high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries has mutual advantages. The researchers may be able to discover new causes of non-communicable diseases, replicate and extend their findings, and explore the links between infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases.
There are varying stages of research needed for various non-communicable diseases, diabetes being just one of many. Each disease also needs different levels of policy development, and action. In some cases, the population burden of many non-communicable diseases may not be commonly known, but in others, researchers may be only a few steps away from knowing all that is necessary to take action, as long as they heed the advice of Ebrahim and colleagues and put the extra time and resources in.
The authors urge that there needs to be changes in the global and national funding agendas, so that the research and health system capacity for non-communicable diseases might be strengthened, and deaths and disability from diseases like diabetes could be reduced. ‘The time has now come for all health-related research and development funders – global, regional, and national – to acknowledge the existence of non-communicable diseases and rise to the challenges they present,’ the authors say.
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