SeriesPreventing chronic diseases: how many lives can we save?
Introduction
An appreciation of the rising global burden of chronic, noncommunicable diseases has been developing for more than 20 years.1, 2, 3, 4 Physicians and health managers have applied effective measures, including behavioural interventions and pharmaceutical treatment, in the prevention and management of chronic diseases, but these are neither widely used nor equitably distributed. Further, a widening gap exists between the reality of the chronic disease burden worldwide and the response of national governments, civil society, and international agencies to this burden. In this paper, we review the mortality and chronic disease burden as estimated for 2005 and projected to 2015. We respond to the gap between information and action by proposing a global goal for prevention of chronic diseases. The global goal is designed to rally partners from all sectors of society to avoid needless suffering and death.
Section snippets
Projections of mortality for 2005 and 2015
WHO provides consistent estimates of deaths by age, sex, and cause for all member countries based on a systematic review and analysis of available evidence from surveys, censuses, sample registration systems, population laboratories, and vital registration on levels and trends in child and adult mortality. The most recent regional and global estimates for mortality by cause are for the year 2002.5 More information on how these estimates were made is available online.6
WHO has prepared updated
Global mortality and burden of disease
We estimate that, globally, about 58 million people will die in 2005. This value is projected to rise to 64 million in 2015. Figure 1 shows the distribution of these deaths across three major cause groups: communicable, maternal, perinatal conditions, and nutritional deficiencies (group 1), chronic, non-communicable, diseases (group 2) and injuries (group 3). At a more detailed cause group level, cardiovascular disease is the leading single cause of death worldwide.
The table shows the projected
Discussion
We present the mortality and burden of disease projections for chronic diseases using the WHO 2002 mortality estimates as a baseline. For regions with limited death registration data, such as the eastern Mediterranean region, sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and the Pacific, there is considerable uncertainty in estimates of deaths by cause. For some countries, only limited information on mortality is available from sources such as the Demographic and Health Surveys and from cause-specific
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