OxHA press conference marks World Diabetes Day
LONDON – On Wednesday 9 November 2005 the Oxford Health Alliance (OxHA) welcomed representatives of the media and policy-making communities to a discussion on the importance of collaboration to drive much-needed change in current diabetes and chronic disease trends.
'At OxHA, we believe chronic disease, especially diabetes, is a preventable tragedy,' said Professor Stig Pramming, Executive Director of OxHA. 'Our forum brought together a cross-section of influential groups and individuals who will be essential to steering change. Their contributions have been refreshing and insightful, and will certainly inform OxHA’s activities in the coming months and years.'
Participating at the open forum were professionals from medical, corporate, social, political and media sectors, all of whom work within the health-care landscape. During the discussion, points of consensus included:
- Whilst 'lifestyle legislation' (e.g. complete cigarette bans) should never be demanded of governments, policy-makers nonetheless have an obligation to ensure the public is sufficiently educated to make genuinely informed lifestyle decisions.
- Collaboration across stakeholder groups can optimise chronic disease communication; a doctor can speak of science, a journalist can reach the audience, but for the right information to reach the right people it must be a joint effort.
- An easily accessible symbol of the issue can be extremely effective to capture and focus public imagination on a topic
As an example of such a symbol, the dead parrot found in a UK quarantine in October 2005 was considered – a single bird that focused extensive media interest on avian flu, despite no meaningful risk to humans from the disease being proven. By contrast, the threat of chronic disease global societies is enormous. The World Health Organisation estimates that of the 58 million deaths worldwide in 2005, 35 million will be due to chronic disease . This startling figure is set to rise exponentially in the near future, with chronic disease killing more people at ever-younger ages as unhealthy lifestyles, poor diets and tobacco use increase and continue to drive the upsurge in diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Yet the attention and action directed towards chronic disease is hugely under-representative of the scale of the issue, and a comparable ‘dead parrot’ will be essential to rectifying this shortfall.
'Every year, diabetes and other chronic diseases claim more lives of ever-younger ages, and much worse is ahead if nothing is changed,' said Professor David Matthews, Chairman of the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM). 'But we can’t depend on science alone. Medicine can treat some chronic diseases, but true prevention lies in awareness. Today we debated how to bring these serious messages home. Data isn’t enough; we must connect these staggering figures to our everyday lives.'
OxHA unites public, private and social organisations with the aim of developing policies that can change the way society perceives and responds to the threat of chronic disease. Today’s OxHA forum with external stakeholders was held in that same spirit of driving change through effective collaboration.
The forum was chaired by public-health policy advisor Pam Garside. On the panel were Stig Pramming, Executive Director of OxHA, Professor David Matthews, Chairman of the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM), and CEO of Novo Nordisk Northern Europe, Viggo Birch.