I WOULD LIKE to respond to the following statement in the article by Dr Colin Alert on June 30: “Since we have no recent data on the exact number of persons inflicted with the NCDs, we expect that the Ministry of Health will soon commence a national enumeration programme (prevalence study), and put in place an ongoing surveillance programme, so we can see exactly how many people are affected.”
The prevalence study, Health Of The Nation, was completed in 2015 by the Chronic Disease Research Centre (CDRC), commissioned by the Ministry of Health, and this demonstrated high prevalence of obesity, hypertension and diabetes in the adult Barbados population. It found two-thirds of adults were either overweight or obese, two out of five had hypertension, and almost one in five adults had diabetes (often undiagnosed).
A surveillance programme (the Barbados National Registry of Chronic Non-communicable Disease; BNR) has been ongoing since 2008 and data showed on average about one heart attack and almost two strokes occur every day in Barbados.
The BNR is conducted by the CDRC on behalf of the ministry. The core findings from the Health Of The Nation survey and the Five-Year BNR Surveillance Report on strokes and heart attacks in Barbados 2009-2013 were presented at this year’s conference of the Barbados Association of Medical Practicioners.
We further note that approaches to make sugar less affordable, by measures such as an excise tax, are well recognised together with other measures such as product reformulation, availability, acceptability and awareness to reduce sugar intake, as valid public health approaches to tackle levels of obesity and risk for NCDs; and that many of these measures have been ongoing in Barbados for the past four years as part of the National Nutrition Improvement and Population Salt Reduction programme.
– Professor Clive Landis, director, CDRC.