CECHE
Center for Communications, Health and the Environment
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Winter 2002 | Vol. 10, Issue 1 |
Partnerships Promote Global Health
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World Health Report '02 Makes Prevention Top Global Priority by Dr. Derek Yach, Executive Director, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, World Health Organization, Geneva |
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This year's World Health Report, "Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life," (www.who.int/whr) provides powerful reasons for greater investment in disease prevention and health promotion. The report documents the impact of major risks for death and disease, and provides a template to help policy-makers orient their work towards tackling major health risks. It also highlights the cost-effectiveness of many policy measures at population and individual levels. In a report of the Macroeconomic Commission on Health, for example, Jeff Sachs placed the cost-effectiveness of tobacco control in developing countries at par with tuberculosis, malaria and measles control. And WHO estimates that improved tobacco control could potentially avert most of the 5 million deaths attributed to tobacco use worldwide. The report provides compelling data. In developed countries, and in lower middle-income countries such as Brazil, China and Thailand, six of the top 10 risks to health are directly related to cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancers and other chronic diseases, it reveals. These risks include tobacco use, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, increased body mass, low fruit and vegetable consumption, excess alcohol intake and physical inactivity. [see full article...] Russian Cancer Center to Motivate, Train Doctors in Tobacco Control by Dr. Vladimir Levshin, Russian Institute of Carcinogenesis, Moscow Russia has one of the highest smoking prevalences in the world: 63 percent of men and 10 percent of women there smoke. There is a critical need for cost-effective, popular, available and applicable methods to encourage and train physicians in the Russian Federation to champion smoking cessation among patients. [see full article...] |
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Center for Communications,
Health and the Environment 4437 Reservoir Road, NW, Washington, DC 20007 Tel: (202) 965-5990 . Fax: (202) 965-5996 Email: ceche@comcast.net |
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