The director of the Fogarty International Center for Advanced Health Sciences (FIC), Dr. Roger I. Glass, and a group of eminent health scientists have published in Nature magazine a landmark global consensus paper detailing 20 measures that are urgently needed to curb humanity's most fatal conditions—chronic, non-communicable diseases.
These diseases account for over 60 percent of deaths worldwide, with four-fifths of those fatalities occurring among citizens of low- and middle-income countries, according to the authors. Such diseases, which in the past were largely confined to industrialized countries, include cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, certain cancers and major mental disorders.
"It is critical that we galvanize scientists and policy makers on this issue to stem the tide of these slow killer illnesses that are largely preventable," said Dr. Glass. "The grand challenge program aims to encourage research and a public health response that will lessen the impact of these new devastating threats to global health in the 21st century."
To learn more, visit www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/full/450494a.html.
