World health meeting calls for increased action to create better health for future generations and tackle epidemic chronic diseases
PRESS UPDATE
Information for immediate release: 1 November 2005
Oxford Health Alliance summit outcomes
Yale University, Connecticut, USA. Today at the Oxford Health Alliance summit, world-leading public health experts, academics, industry leaders, NGOs and governments have made a commitment to fight the 3 risk factors – tobacco, unhealthy diets and physical inactivity – that cause 4 major chronic diseases (CVD, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and some cancer), which are responsible for over half of deaths in the world today.
Oxford Health Alliance was started by the University of Oxford in partnership with Novo Nordisk, the leading diabetes care company. It is dedicated to stimulating action to prevent and control the global chronic disease epidemics. The participants come from diverse backgrounds including government, universities and research groups, industry, non-governmental organisations, youth and patients’ groups, international agencies and the media.
Stig Pramming, CEO of the Oxford Health Alliance, says: ‘Our shared vision, diversity and combined expertise empower us to drive change. We have made significant progress since we met in the Said Business School meeting last September. At this meeting we have had feedback on a number of members who have successfully implemented action based projects through our CAPCoD initiatives – www.oxha.org
Next year we will hold the Oxford Health Alliance summit in Cape Town, South Africa and in the coming months our members have committed to continuing their work together to influence the agendas of policy-makers worldwide and effect real change to create a better health environment for future generations.’
John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, Oxford University, says: ‘The Oxford Health Alliance supports innovative approaches to health promotion and disease prevention spanning many sectors as a social imperative that is both economically desirable and feasible. Existing knowledge needs to be applied now to check the course of these global epidemics in developed and developing countries. We can accelerate action by using our collective power and expertise to address chronic disease prevention and control with a strong focus on children and youth.
Some of the Oxford Health Alliance commitments:
- To evaluate and disseminate knowledge about effective and ineffective actions at local and national levels, the impact of chronic diseases on disparities in health between and within countries, and to describe the human and economic costs of inaction.
- To stimulate ongoing global dialogue aimed at promoting chronic disease prevention through an interactive web-based community.
- To initiate and actively participate in community-based demonstration projects to prevent chronic diseases that conform to rigorous scientific and ethical standards, provide compelling evidence of how to address the major chronic disease risks and inspire sustained change in the broader community.
- To support the broader public health community to make healthy choices the easy choices and to transform health systems to more effectively and ethically manage all chronic diseases.
Representatives from private industry included, Novo Nordisk, Johnson & Johnson, Coco-Cola, PepsiCo. and McDonalds. There was unanimous agreement of the need for policy-makers, private industry and academics to work together more effectively to provide healthier foods, encouraging more active lifestyle and creating better care frameworks for chronic disease.
Other participants included representatives from the World Health Organisation, the World Heart Federation, the UK Department of Health and the International Council of Nurses.
More media information is also available at www.oxha.org.