WHO Launches New Noncommunicable Disease Data Portal, Re-Appoints Bloomberg As Ambassador

There are useless data portals such as the “largest online collection of random, funny, interesting yet useless facts.” Then there are data portals that are really, really needed. Well, the World Health Organization (WHO) has just launched one those really, really needed data portals: a publicly available Noncommunicable Disease (NCD) Data Portal. This portal now allows you and everyone else on Earth with an Internet connection to browse and search NCD-related data for 194 countries. This launch accompanied a commitment by Heads of State around the world to significantly reduce the burden of NCDs and save 50 million lives by 2030. It also accompanied Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, Director-General of the WHO, announcing the re-appointment of Michael R. Bloomberg as WHO Global Ambassador for NCDs and Injuries for another two years.

All in all, it has been a busy past month for the WHO against NCDs, which shouldn’t stand for “no can do’s.” NCDs kill an average of 41 million people each year, with about 17 million of those people dying before they reach 70 years of age, according to the WHO. The WHO also indicated that every two seconds, someone in the world under the age of 70 has died from an NCD. That’s quite a “hold on a second” statistic.

Oh, and if you think that NCDs are just a rich county’s problem, you’d be wrong, wrong as the “It’s Everyday Bro” song. A vast majority (86%) of these premature deaths are in low- and middle-income countries with 77% of all NCD deaths being in such countries. The big five NCDs are cardiovascular diseases accounting each year for 17.9 million deaths, cancer accounting for 9.3 million, chronic respiratory diseases accounting for 4.1 million, and diabetes accounting for 2.0 million.

The release of a new WHO report entitled “Invisible Numbers: The true scale of noncommunicable diseases” accompanied the launch of the portal. Now the “invisible numbers” in the title doesn’t imply that the numbers in the portal are in invisible ink, which would be really weird. It means that many people around the world are simply not aware of the data and all of the ominous numbers.

Bente Mikkelsen, MD, Director of the WHO’s Department for NCDs tweeted about the report and emphasized how a major shift has gone “largely unnoticed” over the last few decades:

You can increase your awareness of what’s going on by going to the portal and sifting through the numbers. For example, click on the “Obesity/Diet” button above the world map and here’s what you get:

Dark red means that over 60% of adults fall into the “overweight” category. As you can see, North America, many countries in Western Europe, much of the Middle East, multiple countries in Northern Africa, and Australia are in really red states. Then if you were to say, “hmm, I wonder how this may correlate with physical inactivity,” you could then click on the “Physical Inactivity” button to yield the following:

Not all of the countries correlate exactly, which would makes sense since obesity is not just about physical inactivity. But this is consistent with the fact that physical inactivity can contribute to obesity and furthers the conversation about the possible negative impact of physical inactivity and what can be done about it. Having such data at your hands can allow you to run your own analyses and provide more awareness about what’s going on with NCDs around the world.

The relative lack of awareness to date has hindered countries, organizations, and people from taking more action against NCDs. It can be easy to overlook the global NCD catastrophe in slow motion that’s happening when dealing with things that are seemingly more in your face such as what someone said on social media to whom. Greater awareness is important because there is certainly no lack of things that can be done to prevent and control a lot of these NCDs. For example, as I have covered previously for the Forbes, the WHO has identified 16 “best-buy” interventions to tackle NCDs, meaning that these interventions ultimately turn out to be very affordable and potentially even cost savings. They range from the “reformulation of food products to contain less salt and the setting of maximum permitted levels for the amount of salt in food” to increasing excise taxes on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products. These 16 are certainly not the only things countries can do against NCDs. They simply represent the low-hanging fruit. (Fresh fruit, by the way, is a good thing to eat rather than ultra-processed foods.)

Speaking of awareness, Bloomberg has been trying to raise more awareness of the impact of and potential solutions for NCDs. Bloomberg Philanthropies, which he founded, has various NCD-related initiatives including the the Partnership for Healthy Cities launched in 2017 that I covered for Forbes previously. He has held the WHO Global Ambassador for Noncommunicable Diseases and Injuries position since 2016 and will begin his fourth consecutive two-year term. In a statement after the renewal of his appointment, Bloomberg emphasized that, “Noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic lung disease, and cancer are the world’s biggest silent killers – but they can often be prevented with investment in proven, cost-effective interventions.” He added, “I look forward to continuing to make life-saving investments in NCD and injury prevention alongside Dr Tedros and the WHO.”

The announcement of Bloomberg’s re-appointment and the release of the WHO report occurred during the first annual gathering of a Heads of State and Government Group for the Prevention of NCDs, that was led by the President of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Støre in New York City at the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

In a statement, the Director-General of the WHO said about the “Invisible Numbers” report, “This report is a reminder of the true scale of the threat posed by NCDs and their risk factors. There are cost-effective and globally applicable NCD interventions that every country, no matter its income level, can and should be using and benefitting from – saving lives and saving money.” He added, “I thank President Afuko-Addo, Prime Minister Støre and Michael Bloomberg for their leadership and vision in addressing this major global health issue.”

Bob Dylan may have warbled, “You’re invisible now, you’ve got no secrets to conceal,” in the song “Like a Rolling Stone.” But in general, when problems are potentially invisible, the first step is to shed light on them. The NCD Data Portal can help shed greater light on NCDs, the leading killer of people around the world. And greater awareness has been leading to greater action. As Kelly Henning, MD, Public Health Program Lead for Bloomberg Philanthropies, related, “There’s now a lot more awareness and a fair amount of demand for participation in NCD control efforts. We continue to see progress in things such as tobacco control and food policies and are beginning to see momentum.” In other words, visible progress is being made to deal with major problems that have remained far too invisible for far too long.