This week, the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (a component of the US National Institutes of Health) and the UnitedHealth Group (one of the world’s largest commercial health and wellbeing companies) have formally committed to a major collaboration to counter chronic disease. In an article in the Lancet, Dr Betsy Nabel (Director of the NHLBI), Simon Stevens (President of Global Health at UnitedHealth) and Dr Richard Smith (the initiative’s director) explain the development of, and need for, the project, which creates a network of centres of excellence in low- and middle-income countries. There are currently 11 sites (nine funded by the NHLBI, eight by UnitedHealth, with six of the sites jointly funded), in Argentina, Bangladesh, China, Guatemala, two sites in India, Kenya, Peru, South Africa and Tanzania, Tunisia, and along the US/Mexico border. There is information about the sites on the NHLBI website here >>
The goal of the initiative is to support high-quality research that will generate the evidence needed to inform policy decisions. It will also increase understanding of the way that different biological, environmental, and sociocultural factors work together to improve or undermine public health. Research goals include a range of activities including:
- ‘health surveillance to garner baseline data on risk prevalence and burden of disease;
- implementation research to develop and communicate new knowledge into workable, culturally appropriate policies and practices;
- decisional modelling to compare intervention strategies; and
- community engagement efforts to raise awareness and enlist the support of local and national leadership.’
The Initiative is already partnering with 3FOUR50 to help members of the different sites communicate their ideas to one another – the Lancet article describes the website as ‘a rich online resource for those interested in raising awareness about chronic diseases and in devising strategies to counter their growing global emergence’.
Source: The Lancet, 11 June 2009 (click here >>).