The Emerging Global Health Crisis: Noncommunicable Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

The biggest global health crisis in low- and middle-income countries is not the one you might think. It is not the exotic parasites, bacterial blights, or obscure tropical viruses that have long occupied international health initiatives and media attention. It is cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which killed more than eight million people before their sixtieth birthdays in low- and middle-income countries in 2013 alone. Unless urgent action is taken, the NCD crisis emerging in developing countries will worsen and become harder to address with each passing year.

This is the report of a bipartisan, independent Task Force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, its first such task force devoted to a global health issue. The co-chairs were Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., Purdue University president and former Indiana governor, and Thomas E. Donilon, the former national security advisor to President Barack Obama. Thomas J. Bollyky directed the project. This Task Force report assesses the case for greater U.S. engagement on the NCD crisis in developing countries and recommends a practical and scalable strategy for intervention.

Keywords: global health, trade, cancer, cardiovascular, noncommmunicable, international development, diabetes, TPP, ISDS

JEL Classification: F19, H51, I1, I11, I12, I18, O00, O1, O18, O19, O38