Young Professionals' Chronic Disease Working Group

VISION:
The vision of the Young Professionals’ Chronic Disease Working Group (YPCDWG) is to battle the neglected epidemic of global non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) by harnessing the talents and energies of the next generation of health leaders to collaborate with established stakeholders in the field. The movement – part social, part technical – will be rooted in the evidence, experience, and insights generated by members from across the globe.

MISSION:
The YPCDWG community on GHDonline.org has a three-part mission:

1) Formulate new and supplement existing policy for global NCDs
2) Develop and disseminate novel chronic care protocols
3) Highlight and resolve real-time problems in implementation of chronic care treatment

OPPORTUNITIES TO PARTICIPATE:
A wide variety of members, including policymakers, junior faculty and health practitioners, are collaborating in this community. Sharing ideas, resources and vision for the next generation of chronic care is at the heart of the group. To join the YPCDWG community on GHDonline, please send an email with your name, organizational or institutional affiliation, and the country you’re working in to YPCDWG@ghdonline.org. (And please let us know if you’re already member of a community on GHDonline!)

• United Nations NCD Summit in 2011
  In September 2011, The UN will host a global Summit on NCDs with heads of state. Our community has been asked to contribute and provide comment on key topics leading up to the Summit on: developing NCD indicators for the Millennium Development Goals, enabling access to essential medicines and developing a global social movement on NCDs.
• Implementation Gaps in Chronic Care
  Members share resource needs, challenges and solutions from the field with each other. The community provides a “safe space” for developing new ways of addressing issues for chronic care, often featuring continuous, life-long delivery needs.

Current members of the YPCDWG community represent a broad range of organizations:

World Economic Forum 
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
American Cancer Society – Global Health Division
Lance Armstrong Foundation
Makerere University
Weill Bugando Medical School, Tanzania 
Tiyatien Health
United Nations Development Program 
Cornell University
National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine 
The Earth Institute
Center for Global Development 
University of Oxford
Brigham and Women’s Hospital 
Partners In Health

United Nations NCD Summit in 2011

Last year, skyrocketing rates of NCDs in the Caribbean led the CARICOM UN delegation to draft a first-ever resolution for a UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) specific to NCDs for September 2011. The operating idea was that we can no longer afford to sit by and discuss NCDs without material buy-in and support from the highest political actors. This rationale echoed the sentiments behind a June 2001 HIV/AIDS UNGASS which soon thereafter resulted in the multi-billion dollar Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, along with worldwide attention to these infectious diseases.

A silent epidemic, NCDs affect millions. Today, heart disease is the leading global killer, with nearly 80% of cardiovascular deaths occurring in poor countries. Three risk factors (tobacco use, poor diets and inadequate physical activity) account for four diseases – heart disease, type II diabetes, lung disease and cancers – that kill 6 out of every 10 people worldwide.

     *Incorporate NCD Indicators into the MDGs?
There is emerging consensus that NCDs are a development issue that disproportionately affects the poor but receives less than 1% of total “global health” funding. To that end, there are important new questions as to whether NCD indicators should be integrated into the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – and if so, what are the highest priority interventions and objectives? Figuring out the best-buys and political economy of this development is a unique opportunity for the group and we have the rare invitation to participate rather than sit on the sidelines.

     *Access to Essential Medicines
Policies and “best-buys” for the secondary prevention of global NCDs are urgently needed. The YPCDWG group features expertise in access to medicines with members from the WHO Essential Medicines program, MSF, and Clinton Foundation to lever our varied backgrounds in the access to medicines sphere.

     *Social Movement to Battle NCDs
There is a mistaken belief that NCDs do not capture the interest of the millennial generation – that the diseases are self-inflicted and the fault of the victim. The group will challenge this view, engineering a global social movement on NCDs using student and trainee networks, particularly in academic institutions in resource-poor settings (e.g. Rwanda, Liberia, Tanzania, South Africa and India). This is particularly important in developing a sustainable, long-term commitment to NCDs – where better to start than the next generation of public health leaders?

Implementation Gaps: Why are we failing?

Despite ample access to protocols and care structures provided by the WHO on NCDs, there is confusion on what an overriding chronic care paradigm should look like. Are we aiming to improve primary health systems, or do we need new “vertical” or “diagonal” programs focused on NCDs? The answers so far are elusive. Continuous, often life-long therapy is required but access to community health workers trained in the nuance of managing NCDs is weak as is a supply chain of essential drugs for NCDs, often viewed as distractions or superfluous. New members joining the community will be able to bridge the gap between principle and practice, informing the debate on what works and what doesn’t – and, critically, helping refine guidelines until we get it right.

To join the YPCDWG community on GHDonline, please send an email with your name, organizational or institutional affiliation, and the country you’re working in to YPCDWG@ghdonline.org.