Grand challenges in chronic non-communicable diseases

This briefing paper from Oxford Health Alliance identifies 20 policy and research priorities, or ‘grand challenges’, for chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs). Agreed by a panel drawn from 50 countries, these challenges focus on heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, type 2 diabetes and certain forms of cancer, which together make up the largest burden of disease worldwide. The main risk factors for these diseases are poor diet, physical inactivity and tobacco smoking.

Key policy goals in the paper include improving public education about healthy lifestyle choices, developing trade agreements and regulations to discourage consumption of alcohol, tobacco and unhealthy foods, and developing and monitoring codes of responsible conduct with the food, drink and restaurant industries. The paper also recommends moving health training and practice towards prevention and health promotion, increasing the number and skills of professionals working on CNCDs, and increasing access to medications for preventing complications of CNCDs. The authors stress the need for long-term financing and interdisciplinary research, for example to explore how behaviour, environment and genetics influence disease. With co-ordinated action by countries and multiple funding agencies, they argue that it is possible to prevent at least 36 million premature deaths by 2015.