Targeting high blood pressure
It has been estimated that almost a billion people world-wide have high blood pressure, with two-thirds of these living in developing countries. This pandemic is occurring despite the progress that people have made in preventing and treating hypertension and the chronic diseases that result from it.
“In developed countries, the rate of chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney diseases that result from high blood pressure is dropping by significant numbers. Over the past forty years, premature deaths from cardiovascular disease in Australia have decreased by greater than 70 percent” Professor Warwick Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of the NHMRC said.
“The health evidence shows that mortality associated with chronic non-communicable diseases is increasing in developing countries. Creating an international evidence base to inform strategies to overcome the key barriers to reducing death and the health burden in developing countries must be a priority. Cultural, language and socio-economic barriers should not limit populations’ access to health benefits.
“All of our biggest health threats require an international research effort. Having global health and medical research funds united in coordinated approaches to research, research evaluation and data sharing will lead to faster solutions.”
Responses to the Alliance’s call for research will need to demonstrate how researchers will ensure that results are interpretable and applicable across a range of locations.
Standard metrics and protocols for examining outcomes and for assessing features of the health care system and broader context will ensure that research will be applicable to all settings. It will provide important frameworks for future research into applying prevention and treatment strategies to other global health issues, including obesity and mental health.
This research will particularly investigate the barriers to research translation that have prevented treatments that are effective in controlling high blood pressure being adopted by other at-risk populations.
A greater understanding of how preventative strategies and high blood pressure treatments can be introduced across a range of socio-economic and cultural settings will result from the project. This knowledge will provide the foundation for changes in systems (healthcare) and processes to reduce disparities in high blood pressure control across population sub-groups.
The results of this research will also help health care providers and policy decision makers in low and middle income settings to improve health systems across their population. The assessment of research proposals will also be strengthened internationally through the development of a prototype for the peer review of chronic diseases in low to middle income countries.
“Australia punches well above its weight in producing innovative health and medical research. The results of Australian research have paved the way to better prevention, better treatments, and cures for conditions once thought incurable. The NHMRC is committed to working with our sister funding bodies to ensure that social and economic benefits of health and medical research are translated into tangible results in global health systems” Professor Anderson said.
The Alliance is concerned about all chronic non-communicable diseases. In 2009, the World Health Organization identified that the leading global risk factors for death, particularly in low and middle income settings, were caused by non-communicable diseases. Trends suggest that the incidence of non-communicable disease in these settings is increasing, with a significant negative economic impact.
The potential benefits from the Alliance’s investment in this research are significant. Individuals’, families and societies will be more productive and less affected by the secondary health effects of chronic disease if research is able to translate existing knowledge into improved policies and practices in these developing countries.
The Alliance is formed by six of the world’s peak health and medical research funding agencies, which represent 80% of the world’s health and medical research funding.
Members of the Alliance are:
- National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia
- Canadian Institutes of Health
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences
- South Africa’s Medical Research Council
- United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council
- United States’ National Institutes of Health
Further information about this call for applications can be found on the Alliance website at the following link www.ga-cd.org
