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REVIEW article

Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. General Cardiovascular Medicine
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2024.1380809
This article is part of the Research Topic Non-Pharmacological Approaches for Cardiovascular Health in Underrepresented Populations View all 4 articles

Preven'on and control of cardiovascular disease in "real-world" se6ngs: sustainable implementa'on of effec've policies

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Senior Adviser (Formerly WHO), The Geneva Learning Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland
  • 2 Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Global progress in addressing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has been insufficient to attain the nine WHO noncommunicable disease (NCD) targets and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target of reducing premature NCD mortality by one-third by 2030. Progress has been slowest in Low-and -middle-income countries (LMIC) where addressing the CVD burden is a foremost development imperative. This review examines the reasons for this situation to propose a way forward. First, we review policy instruments to address behavioural and metabolic risk factors of CVD and health system interventions to improve cardiovascular outcomes. Second, we illustrate the financial, health workforce, health system challenges, and weak national capacity that impede the implementation of these policy instruments. Third, we discuss how LMIC might move forward despite these challenges by a) giving due consideration to contextual and other factors that determine the success of policy implementation b) including affordable, high-impact interventions as the core of the UHC health benefit package with PHC as the foundation and c) by taking note of the WHO guidance provided in the 2023-2030 implementation roadmap for the Global Action Plan for prevention and control of NCD.

    Keywords: cardiovasccular disease, inequities, Low and middle income counties, Health spending, Health workforce availability

    Received: 02 Feb 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mendis and Graham. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Shanthi Mendis, Senior Adviser (Formerly WHO), The Geneva Learning Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.