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Launch
Centre of Excellence for Prevention and Control of Cardio-Metabolic Diseases Launched
This centre will provide population-based applied research
and training to combat cardio-metabolic diseases
The Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) recently launched a Centre of
Excellence (COE) for the Prevention and Control of Cardio-Metabolic Diseases
in South Asia alongside its partners, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences
(AIIMS), Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), and Emory University (United
States).
This centre will provide population-based applied research and training to combat
cardio-metabolic diseases. The PHFI COE (along with its collaborators), was
selected by the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in partnership with
United Health, and 10 other global Centers of Excellence (COEs). The overall
aims of these COEs are to enable clinical research infrastructure development,
to conduct research of new or improved approaches, programmes, and measures,
to prevent or treat chronic heart and lung disease, to conduct research training,
and developing future investigators at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels
and to stimulate clinical, epidemiologic, health services and outcomes, health
policy, translational, and behavioral research.
The opening of the centre represents an important development for this region
given the recent rise in diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart
disease and stroke. On an average, these diseases affect South Asians who are
10-15 years younger than those in other countries; as such, over one-third of
heart disease-related deaths in India occur between the ages of 35 - 64 years,
compared to only 12 per cent in the US.
Unless urgent action is taken, Asian Indians will account for 40 - 60 per cent
of the global cardiovascular disease burden within the next 10 - 15 years, despite
having less than 20 per cent of the world's population. According to an online
Lancet (2009) publication, chronic diseases - heart disease, cancer, type II
diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases - now cause more than half of all
deaths worldwide, 80 per cent of which occur in low-income and middle-income
countries. This impending 'health catastrophe provoked by this global surge
of chronic disease is also an underappreciated cause of poverty that impedes
the economic development of many countries.
The centre aims to establish applied science, train build and sustain capacity
for conducting applied research, and ultimately connect science with policies
and programme that will facilitate health promotion to maintain healthy lifestyles,
prevent risk factors, and treat established disease with effective yet inexpensive
methods.
PHFI has worked closely with its partner institutions to develop a regionally-representative
cardio-metabolic surveillance system to understand the breadth and depth of
this serious problem. Also, it has developed an innovative clinical trial to
reduce the cardio-metabolic risk of study participants by training non-physician
health workers in the use of mobile phone decision-support technology for high
cardio-metabolic risk participants. It has been teaching the fundamentals of
clinical research to three Indian and US scholars through the US National Institutes
of Health Fogarty International Clinical Research programme, since the summer
of 2009, a number that will later increase to four in 2010.
EH News Bureau
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