Path.org non-communicable diseases situational analysis report

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and diabetes, are the leading cause of mortality in the world. Every year, 41 million people die from NCDs, 15 million of them between the ages of 30 and 69. Despite the many proven solutions, progress has been slow and uneven globally.

This report on the Situational Analysis of non-communicable diseases in low and middle income countries (LMIC) issued by Path.Org, provides an overview of the NCD ecosystem, a description of primary findings, and recommendations for future action by non-state actors. 

The landscape is viewed through the lens of the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) health systems framework that describes six building blocks, including: 

• Service delivery 
• Health workforce 
• Information 
• Medical products, vaccines, and technologies 
• Financing 
• Leadership and governance.

The assessment is timely as countries set their Universal Health Coverage (UHC) roadmaps.  In many countries, NCDs such as hypertension, diabetes, mental health, and cancers have been noted as a key component of facility-based primary services and preventive services that need to be scaled up to achieve UHC. Hypertension (HTN) and diabetes were selected for the purposes of this landscaping as they are leading NCDs among the four major NCDs.  

Though the landscape was viewed through the lens of the WHO health systems building blocks, findings and recommendations are presented across four pillars: Access, Integrated Models of Care, Capacity Building, and Sustainability Efforts — to organize the information and analysis with a view toward the prioritization of gaps and opportunities for intervention and partnership, especially for non-state actors. Through sharing the learnings from this situational analysis with the global community, our aim is to illustrate existing unmet needs in low and middle income country (LMIC) settings and where there are opportunities for collaboration and partnership to address these.