A new study, published in Global Health Action, clearly demonstrates the extraordinary changes in mortality profile that have taken place over a 20-year period in Matlab, Bangladesh. Between 1986 and 2006, the Health and Demographic Surveillance System data for the region (on which the study is based – almost 19,000 deaths) indicates that the proportion of deaths due to non-communicable diseases increased almost nine-fold.
- In 1986, non-communicable diseases (cancers, CVD and COPD, etc.) accounted for 8% of deaths, compared to 52% deaths due to communicable diseases (diarrhoea, dysentery, TB and respiratory infections, etc.).
- In 1996, the proportion of NCD death increased to 41% and deaths due to infectious disease fell to 31%.
- By 2006, 68% of all deaths were due to NCD, with communicable disease accounting for just 11% of the total.
Improvements in primary health care have greatly reduced the mortality rate from diarrhoea and dysentery (down by 86%) and respiratory infections by 79%, although mortality from TB increased by 173%.
The increase in the burden of NCD, however, has been extraordinary – CVD mortality has increased by 3,527%.
The authors conclude, health systems would do well to prepare for and adapt to the ongoing changes, including devising behaviour change activities, and facilitating non-traditional financing mechanisms like community health insurance schemes to take the pressure off health services.
Source: Zunaid Ahsan Karar, Nurul Alam and Peter Kim Streatfield, ‘Epidemiological transition in rural Bangladesh, 1986–2006’, Global Health Action (19 June 2009). (Click here >> for the article - the graph below is from this source.)
