- A study analyzed the current situation in 7 Latin American countries.
- 90 percent of the experts urge the creation of patient education programs on healthy lifestyles and access to medicines.
- 90% of those interviewed agree on the need to unite efforts, link civil society and the private sector in the fight against these pathologies.
The Non-communicable diseases impact the quality of life of millions of people. In addition, they generate high costs for health systems and have been named by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) as the great epidemic of our time, therefore immediate actions are required to stop the epidemic.
Current situation in Latin America
In this regard, the consultancy LLYC prepared the report “Habits that cost lives: The epidemic of Noncommunicable Diseases”. The objective is to evaluate opportunities, from the perspective of communication, to contribute to the fight against these diseases together with experts from Mexico, Panama, Colombia, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Brazil.
The report summarizes the findings in documents and information sources from ministries of health, public health societies, health statistics centers in 7 Latin American countries and explores the perception of 38 Latin American experts from medical societies, governments, academia, research groups, patients, civil society organizations, companies and unions in the diagnosis, treatment, needs and opportunities to obtain better results when dealing with diseases such as cardiovascular diseases (heart attacks and strokes), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes.
Need to change lifestyles
This report, which focuses on the prevalence, consequences, and modifiable factors of Non-communicable diseases and contrasts the findings that define current health promotion and prevention strategies as insufficient, revealed that 90 percent of experts point out that one of the challenges to face them and reduce the burden on health systems is to create programs of patient education on healthy lifestyles and access to medication.
While 80% indicated the need to strengthen primary care; and 5% mention the importance of fighting against air and water pollution and being attentive to carcinogenic precursors in food.
Also highlighted in the report was the urgent need to shift the focus from a curative model to a preventive model. 97% of those surveyed responded as their first recommendation or requirement to governments, the need to focus on prevention to improve the timely diagnosis rate.
It is important to comment that the experts pointed out that today the existing policies focus on the care of diseases and not on prevention. In addition to the fact that 9 out of 10 respondents agree that patients do not have a culture of adherence to treatment.
It also shows that 90% of those surveyed agreed on the need to join efforts, link civil society and the private sector to obtain better results in the fight against these diseases and improve people’s quality of life.
It is important to highlight that in the case of Mexico, PAHO pointed out that the country spends barely 3% of GDP on the health sector and that there are also other challenges such as medical infrastructure that limits the detection and treatment of non-toxic diseases. More frequent communicable diseases such as cancer, due to the difficulty in accessing health services and the available technology, as well as the accessibility to medical centers or the lack of specialists and medicines.
On the other hand, the 2020-2024 Health Sector Program does not establish any national public policy on Non-communicable diseasesbut it enunciates specific actions to improve coverage, equitable access and quality in health services for diagnosis and timely treatment to reduce its incidence in the population.
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