» Sub-Saharan African Healthcare: The User Experience – A focus on non-communicable diseases

Why read this report

The NCD risk in Africa is growing, as societal shifts increasingly constrain certain healthy lifestyle choices and create opportunities for unhealthy ones.
Widespread lack of understanding of NCD-related risk, and even of the nature of NCDs themselves, impedes prevention and treatment.
NCDs place a crushing cost burden on a large number of patients, with a majority needing to borrow in order to fund treatment:
However expensive it is, NCD care is often of poor quality.
Improvements in a variety of areas can start making a difference, These include: Improved data, prevention, patient power, expanded use of existing personnel and assets, and universal health care.

Report Summary

By 2030, chronic, non-communicable diseases will claim more lives in sub-Saharan Africa than will infectious diseases
Societal shifts which constrain certain healthy lifestyle choices and create opportunities for unhealthy ones are behind the rise in chronic disease incidence
Improving data, focusing on prevention and empowering patients through self-help groups can help to slow the disease trends

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