I am in Geneva for the World Health Assembly (WHA) this week to present new research on global heart health by The Economist Intelligence Unit. A special event at the WHA, Global Heart Health and the Road to 2025, will focus on how countries can meet the target of a 25% relative reduction in premature mortality from cardiovascular disease by 2025, which is enshrined in the World Health Organisation's global action plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases for the 2013-20 period. The event is co-hosted by Devex, the International Alliance of Patients' Organisations and the World Heart Federation. Panelists will discuss the opportunities for innovation in disease prevention, management and treatment in an ageing world.
The event comes at a time when we are seeing growing evidence of significant policy gaps in promoting heart health. A new report by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Global heart health: Evaluating efforts to promote healthy hearts, sponsored by Novartis, highlights that significant improvements in the provision of patient-centred, integrated care for people living with heart disease are required globally.
Room for improvement
More than half (54%) of countries have patient advocacy organisations collaborating with government and/or national health organisations to promote heart health. However, only 11% of countries routinely use cardiovascular- or heart disease-specific health status surveys in patient assessments. And only one-quarter of countries use information and communications technology both to deliver care (eg, telemedicine) and to collect patient data (eg, home monitoring).
Insufficient monitoring systems and inequalities in access to care undermine patient-centred heart health care. Only around one-fifth of countries surveyed have a monitoring system (such as a registry) in place for all heart diseases covered in the scorecard. Meanwhile, inequalities in access to primary and secondary prevention programmes, as well as to cardiac interventions, exist both within and between countries.
Lack of comprehensive strategic plans
The report also found that many countries have established strategic plans for heart health, but they are often not sufficiently comprehensive and lack adequate implementation. Moreover, only one-quarter have run focused heart health campaigns for one or more specific age groups as well as for health professionals.
Source: Heart health hub, http://hearthealth.economist.com/
The report is based on a scorecard to help assess the burden of, and policy approaches to, diseases of the heart in 28 countries. It includes a set of 21 indicators to evaluate each selected country across five domains: strategic plan; public-health policies; best practice; access and provision; and patient focus.
The heart health hub consists of a global white paper and infographic, based on the scorecard; 28 country brochures; an event summary paper; and a series of blogs written by heart-health influencers, including Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.
