Working together - the way forward

To make a real difference in chronic disease, it is necessary to bring together stakeholders from all parts of society – government, industry, employers, young people, development agencies and civil society organisations. Future patterns of health will be fundamentally determined by the way in which society develops – how individuals and communities share opportunities, interact with the natural environment, and design cities, transport systems, food systems, workplaces and housing. New technologies can help in sharing information and best practice using social networking and other tools.

There are signs that the seriousness of the chronic disease epidemic in developing countries is beginning to be recognised by donors, with, for example, recent major investments from Bloomberg Philanthropies (for tobacco control around the world), Ovations and NHLBI (whose initiative is to set up centres of excellence in chronic disease prevention in developing countries around the world) and the PepsiCo Foundation (to fund the initial Oxford Health Alliance Community Interventions for Health initiative sites in China, India, Mexico and the UK).