While there are many things that differ between developed
and developing nations, both have tremendous health care expenditures on
non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These diseases are estimated to cause more
than 36 million deaths a year around the globe, which accounts for over half of
57 million deaths that occur. Non-communicable diseases include cancer, chronic
respiratory diseases, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. For most of these
diseases, knowledge and prevention is the key to combating them. For those who
already have these disease, management of them is essential. The World Health
Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have created
a partnership and come up with an innovative way to help save lives and reduce
health care costs. They will be using existing mobile technology to provide
assistance and promote better knowledge through apps and text messaging. The initiative
is radical in that it is built on existing mobile technology so it will not be
so costly to implement or to expand to poorer nations which already have
widespread use of the technology. The initiative is called “mHealth” and is a
result of UN Agencies agreeing to devote more attention to and work together in
order to “prevent and control NCDs and their risk factors.” In turn, this will
enable nations to focus more on economic growth and development and to allocate
more resources to it. The initiative will develop operating procedures by
working with global partners and to implement the procedures it will work with
national governments. The initiative will have a four year trial and will use
mobile solutions, such as promoting healthy eating, increased activity, and
helping people better manage their diseases, to further develop the initiative.
Many people stand to benefit from this initiative and there is no way to
measure the benefits as of yet, but it is very promising. There is also a huge
potential for it to be used as an example to develop many other programs using
existing technology to reach massive numbers of people.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2012/mHealth_20121017/en/index.html
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