The new podcast series by NCD Alliance
Voices of the Health Revolution is a podcast series that shines a spotlight on the trailblazers who are leading bold action to protect our universal right to health - even when that means taking a stand against the big industries who threaten it.The answer may surprise you - it’s preventing and treating noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs. The most common ones include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, cancers, and mental health conditions. But there are hundreds of others like eye health conditions, oral health diseases, chronic kidney disease (CKD) and thyroid conditions.
Together, they account for 41 million deaths each year - that’s 74% of all deaths in the world - and 15 million of these are occurring in people between the ages of 30 and 70. They also cause 80% of disability in the world, and take a catastrophic toll on the economies of countries and households. And the toll of NCDs is rising fast - most of all in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Why?
It’s because most NCDs share a common denominator: the risk factors that provoke and aggravate them.
As exposure to these risk factors rises, so does the prevalence of NCDs.
This has been especially visible in LMICs, where these risk factors began commonly appearing just three to four decades ago. Now, they are a part of life for most people in the world. In all countries regardless of income status, the poorest and most marginalized communities are the most exposed to NCD risk factors - and therefore, the most at risk of NCDs and their consequences.
This higher exposure is not usually the result of individual choice, but rather the result of social and structural determinants. For instance, physical inactivity is often the result of not having safe or appealing outdoor areas, an unhealthy diet may be due to the prohibitively high cost of fresh foods compared to ultra-processed ones, and exposure to air pollution often comes from using unsafe cooking fuels in poorly ventilated areas, a common practice in developing countries. Health-harming industries, like those producing tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and breastmilk substitutes, also seek out marginalized groups with aggressive marketing tactics, in relentless pursuit of “new markets” to be exploited.
The good news is that these risk factors can be modified through collective action - and progress is being made all the time. You’ll hear about it in this podcast series, where advocates and activists share their struggles and triumphs as they work towards a world where everyone enjoys an equal right to health.
In this episode, we’re looking ahead to UHC Day, on December 12. The 2024 theme is Health: it’s on the government! UHC of course stands for Universal Health Coverage, and today we’re talking about financing for UHC and its relationship to NCDs financing. Our guest is Professor David Watkins, of the departments of Medicine and Global Health at the University of Washington. We will delve into issues including how government financing for UHC will by necessity be dominated by NCDs prevention and care, which is now paid in large part by out-of-pocket spending. David also points out how investing in the so-called ‘best buys’ to tackle NCDs generates a limited amount of revenue, so that governments must also work to raise more funds overall and ensure that enough revenue is dedicated to health and to NCDs specifically. Finally, David outlines some of his current research ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in September 2025, including on the affordability of medicines.
Published on: 9 December 2024
In this episode we’re talking about oral health and noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, with Dr Greg Chadwick, President of FDI World Dental Federation, and Dr Dympna Kavanagh, Chief Dental Officer for the Republic of Ireland. What they both stress in today’s chat is how the adoption in 2021 of a World Health Assembly resolution flipped the way that most people thought of oral health—primarily as something isolated from general health. Today, both Dympna and Greg are preparing for the first World Health Organization global meeting on oral health which, says Dympna, the WHO insists should be attended by two representatives of Member States—one tasked with oral health, the other with health overall. The silo has been removed and replaced by integration and a multisectoral approach to oral health, which shares many risk factors with NCDs, as you will hear.
Published on: 28 October 2024
Jamaica and other Caribbean countries are known for their leadership in advocating globally for action on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Jamaica Minister of Health and Wellness Dr. Christopher Tufton explains how and why in this episode of the NCD Alliance podcast, Voices of the health revolution. One notable success he singled out is Jamaica Moves, a programme to encourage the general public to be physically active, which builds on people’s love of music and dance. Looking ahead to the United Nations High-Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025, it’s time to declare the NCDs epidemic as a global health emergency, said the Minister. “We are losing our population and indeed the global population in many jurisdictions are on the decline, largely because of premature illness and premature mortality.”
Published on: 24 September 2024
In July, NCD Alliance published The Call To Lead open letter which serves as a crucial advocacy tool, urging all governments to fulfil their commitments to address the burden of NCDs. It calls on Member States to take decisive action at the Fourth UN High-level Meeting on NCDs in September 2025. Open to civil society endorsement, including both organisations and individuals, this sign-on letter will be delivered to world leaders next year.
What does it mean to lead on NCDs in 2024? How can we create pressure points for governments to take action? Our Global Week for Action Campaign Coordinator, Gina Sanchez, discussed these questions and the open letter itself with NCD Alliance Policy and Advocacy Director Alison Cox in the latest episode of the Voices of the Health Revolution. "Leaders have a moral imperative to urgently address the global epidemic of noncommunicable diseases. NCDs are not just a health crisis—they threaten our collective future, deepen inequalities, and hinder sustainable development," says Alison.
Published on: 28 August 2024
This is our third episode on the theme of leadership and the 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs (UNHLM). It features the voices of youth working to address the noncommunicable disease (NCD) emergency. “It’s really important to talk about who has the power to make decisions,” said physician Apoorva Gomber, who acted as host. All the guests agreed that youth are already acting as leaders globally but that their work needs to be better incorporated into policy-making about NCDs. The definition of leadership should also be broadened, said Swarnima Bhattacharya, founder of Gytree, which focuses on NCDs and women in India. “There are people who are working through community radio, people who are raising awareness in education, there are doctors who are building communities also… obviously youth are at the forefront because they have mobility and energy.” Looking to the UNHLM, priorities should include 1. Stronger political commitments and finances, 2. Equitable access to prevention, screening and treatment for NCDs, especially for marginalized people, and 3. Addressing commercial determinants of health, including marketing of unhealthy products, said Queen Morkporkpor Doe, from Ghana.
Published on: 18 July 2024
The World Bank is co-hosting the Second global dialogue on sustainable financing for NCDs and mental health, 20-21 June 2024, in Washington DC. Ahead of the meeting we spoke with Dr Monique Vledder, Practice Manager of the Global Health, Nutrition and Population Unit at the Bank. She stressed the importance of World Bank President Ajay Banga declaring in April that the Bank intended to reach 1.5 billion people with healthcare programmes. Vledder is hoping the Dialogue helps to build consensus on policy recommendations and strategies that will feed into the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in 2025. “We’re just delighted that at the core of that is country leadership — there’s a very very large group of ministers of health and their senior staff joining the Dialogue to build a consensus and the recommendations for what’s next.”
Published on: 18 June 2024
In this episode of Voices of the health revolution we hear about two sources of leadership that will be key as the global NCD community works toward the 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs. Not surprisingly, the three speakers all point to people living with NCDs as uniquely qualified to spearhead progress. “We are not just key stakeholders but we hold a very unique expertise… that no other expert has, because we know what it’s like to live with the condition,” says Lucía Feito Allonca.
Another source of leadership and fuel for the NCD movement is collaboration, notes Alejandro Daly, who is also deeply involved in the climate change and mental health movements. He predicts that health will become the North Star of global cooperation and multilateralism and within health, NCDs will be the focal point. Other bridges should be built with advocates working for healthy food and those trying to uncover health-harming industries like tobacco and alcohol, says episode host Ogweno Stephen.
Published on: 28 May 2024
Prevention is better than cure, and this couldn’t be truer when it comes to noncommunicable diseases. In this podcast, Dr Monika Arora, President of NCD Alliance and Executive Director of HRIDAY shares the facts about NCD prevention and how governments can show true leadership in protecting the health of their populations by implementing tried-and-true policies and programmes. She also shines a spotlight on health harming industries, like junk food, tobacco and fossil fuels, and their interference in health policy making in countries around the world. As we approach the 4th UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health in 2025, Monika shares one key message with decision makers everywhere: It’s time to take the lead on NCDs.
This podcast comes with a bonus: our host is Snehal Nandagawli, Chapter Lead at Blue Circle Diabetes Foundation & Global Diabetes Advocate, who adds her poignant perspectives to the conversation!
Published on: 23 April 2024
We often hear that mental health is neglected in part because of the stubborn stigma associated with living with a mental health condition in many — if not most — parts of the world. In an attempt to spotlight this neglected topic, in this episode we speak with two advocates for mental health, one based in Africa the other in South-east Asia. Charity Muturi and Yves Zuniga discuss if mental health indicators worldwide are improving. They also describe their advocacy plans for 2024 and beyond to ensure more focus, and resources, are invested in mental health globally.
Published on: 26 March 2024
The number of people displaced by natural disasters, conflict and other factors continues to grow. In 2023, 299 million people needed humanitarian assistance and protection, (10% more than at the end of 2022, according to the Global Humanitarian Overview 2024). Many of them are living with noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, but until recently their specific needs were virtually ignored in planning for disaster relief and recovery. That is slowly changing.
From 27 to 29 February, UN Member States will meet at the Global high-level technical meeting on noncommunicable diseases in humanitarian settings. Organised by the World Health Organization and the UN Refugee Agency. The closed meeting in Copenhagen will assemble NCD, emergency, refugee, and health systems experts, along with UN agencies, academic bodies and non-state actors, all dedicated to strengthening the integration of NCDs in humanitarian responses.
Ahead of the meeting, NCD Alliance published the briefing paper, Neglected and in crisis: NCDs as a priority in humanitarian settings, which contains many recommendations on improving how NCDs can be better included in humanitarian responses. Today, we’re speaking with two people who will be closely watching the results of that meeting. Dr Catherine Karekezi is the executive director of the NCD Alliance Kenya, and Megan Sheridan is the Programme Manager of the Global Oncology Network of the US-based organisation Direct Relief.
Published on: 23 February 2024
Small island developing states (SIDS) are being battered by noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In response, a series of events were organised in recent years to examine SIDS’ current situation and needs. The latest of these was the SIDS Ministerial Conference, held in Barbados in June. Strategic guidance for the Conference was provided by a policy expert group co-chaired by Sir George Alleyne and Sir Collin Tukuitonga. In our new episode we speak to the co-chairs about the Ministerial Conference and the events that pre-dated it as well as about the Bridgetown Declaration generated by the Ministerial Conference, and what it will take to achieve its calls to action. While recognising that making progress on NCDs prevention and care will require constant, long-term effort, both men are optimistic and already see signs of progress.
Published on: 24 August 2023
Since we recorded this episode in June, Bayalpata Hospital management has learned that its funding for the current fiscal year, which started in July, is in doubt. Management signed a five-year agreement with the provincial government in 2022 but now officials say that there is no legal mechanism to transfer money to the hospital. A committee has been set up to look into this and a report is expected in early August. Meanwhile, the hospital is delaying signing staff contracts.
Bayalpata Hospital has been working to provide universal health coverage — care that is accessible and affordable to everyone — since it started running as a non-profit project in Nepal’s Far West region 15 years ago. COVID-19 disrupted the initiative, for example by cutting patient numbers by more than half, to below 50,000 per year. A couple of years earlier Nepal’s transition to a federal governance system meant that the hospital was suddenly working most closely with a provincial government not the Ministry of Health in Kathmandu. Despite these disruptions, Bayalpata is developing as an alternative healthcare model, one that provides free healthcare to people in the most disadvantaged part of the country while developing innovative service delivery tools, funding sources and collaborations.
Published on: 12 August 2023
In recent decades growing attention has been paid to how the social and environmental conditions in which we live— such as air quality (environmental) and income (social) — affect our health. These are known as social and environmental determinants of health. Now a spotlight has been turned on commercial determinants of health, thanks to a new series in The Lancet. Today we’re chatting with three contributors to that series to learn more about commercial determinants: how the products made by commercial actors, and the processes they use in making them, affect people’s health, and how we might start to reduce those impacts. Thanks as always to our guests:
Published on: 5 June 2023
NCDs account for 74% of all global deaths, 41 million people each year, yet they attract a miniscule fraction of global health financing. So situating them within other regional and global health movements, such as advocacy for Universal Health Coverage, is key to raising their profile and boosting support for NCD care and prevention, explains Dr. Douglas Webb in this episode. We also discuss how the new UN Health4Life Fund is designed to support national government initiatives in order to maximise their investments in NCDs and at the same time overcome the forces, such as Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, trying to suppress such activity.
Published on: 30 Mars 2023
Sugary drinks are a major driver of the global epidemic of chronic conditions like obesity and diabetes. One way to keep consumption under control is through fiscal policies like taxes on these health harming beverages. Francine Charles from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Barbados was at the frontline of the effort to move the Barbados sugary drinks tax increase forward. In this interview, she explains how they did it and how they are now working to see the implementation of diverse healthy food policies to reduce chronic disease and build a healthier population.
Published on: 2 September 2022
Lack of resources and investment in NCD prevention and care is costing the world millions of lives and dollars each year. Yet, there are powerful and cost-effective actions that countries can take to turn the tide on NCDs. In this interview, NCD Alliance CEO Katie Dain shares her views and expertise on how we can close global health’s biggest funding gap. She reveals why investment in NCD prevention and control is the world’s biggest opportunity to save lives and money by 2030.
Published on: 2 September 2022
South Africa recently launched The National Strategic Plan for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases, 2022-2027. Dr. Vicki Pinkney-Atkinson is Director of the South African NCD Alliance, which worked with the government over eight years to complete the document. In this interview she describes how difficult it was for people living with NCDs to have their voices heard when the new plan was being prepared and the challenges facing its implementation, including lack of resources. She also stresses that NCD activists were determined to followed the path made by the HIV/AIDs movement.
Published on: 4 September 2022
People-centred healthcare occurs when people, not their conditions, are placed at the heart of health services, programmes and policies. In this episode, Johanna Ralston, CEO of World Obesity Federation, and former CEO of the World Heart Federation, speaks to her experiences of living with noncommunicable diseases for over 30 years. From being silent about her experience at the very beginning, to learning to speak and leverage the platforms around her, Johanna's journey has brought her to advocate for the meaningful involvement of the lived experience in decision-making. Johanna – a leader in the global NCD movement – talks about the improvements in resourcing and prioritisation of NCDs in the policy landscape, but she also knows we’ve still a long way to go.
Published on: 5 September 2022
Chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease cause 41 million deaths per year, or 74% of all deaths globally. Out-of-pocket health costs are often catastrophic, driving millions of people into poverty every year. Yet they are the most underfunded global health issue. In this podcast, we hear from diverse NCD champions on the urgent need to close this funding gap - and solutions that can make it happen, like fiscal policies for health, innovative partnerships and integrated care. In the lead up to the Second Global NCD Financing Dialogue that will take place in 2023, the time is now to put our minds together and take a new approach to global health financing.
This podcast highlights five voices from NCDA's event: NCD financing as the foundation for healthy societies and economies
Published on: 9 September 2022
Efforts to make people worldwide more physically active have stumbled. Five years ago the world’s countries adopted the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Action Plan on Physical Activity (GAPPA). But putting it in place “has been slow and uneven, resulting in little progress towards increasing population levels of physical activity… and a reversal of progress in several key areas,” says a new WHO progress report . One of the main issues is that governments’ efforts often are not well coordinated, says Fiona Bull, Acting Director and Programme Manager in the Department of Prevention of NCDs, in this episode of Voices of the health revolution. Ways to get the GAPPA back on its feet include investing in “health-enabling environments” so that individuals aren’t left on their own to become more physically active, and supporting governments to take broad-based actions that encompass other ministries beyond those responsible for health and physical activity.
Published on: 19 October 2022
Despite big advances on NCDs over the last decade, people living with NCDs worldwide have struggled to find platforms where their voices are heard, and where their experiences with health systems and policies contribute to shaping them. Our Views, Our Voices, an initiative launched by the NCD Alliance and people living with NCDs, was started five years ago with the aim of changing this. In this special anniversary podcast, you'll hear from Cajsa Lindberg and Bruno Helman, two lived experience advocates and members of the Our Views, Our Voices Advisory Committee. They reflect on all the initiative has been helping to drive change - even at global levels - and what they hope to achieve in the next five years to come.
Published on: 1 December 2022
