Wealthier countries are, unsurprisingly, better at tackling NCDs: a gold-standard healthcare service helps a lot. But there are ways lower-income countries can improve healthcare, and both governments and the industry have a role to play. The debate about price of medicines compared to total cost of treatment is a very important one. Sometimes the right pharmaceutical treatment, for example, might seem very expensive. But if it means the patient doesn’t need hospital care, or recovers much more quickly, the overall cost might in fact be cheaper. It is up to governments to change perception; the industry’s role is education.
Healthcare isn’t the only answer, by any stretch. Helping people learn about how lifestyle can impact health is also very important, and it is another education role the industry needs to take on. It is vital because it can be preventative; it is also significantly cheaper than healthcare. And money is always a consideration.
People who live in the high-income countries, like Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea are typically well-informed about the need for healthy eating and regular exercise.
However, that isn’t the case across the region. In countries with increasing incomes, we often see a more sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diets, which include fast food, hot-pots, beer and so on. The result is greater incidence of long-term life-style diseases – NCDs. For instance, the level of diabetes is as high as 16.6% of the population in some of these countries, compared to the average across Asia of 8.5%.
Meanwhile, in low-income countries, the challenge is often that NCDs go undiagnosed. For example, it is generally accepted that one out of two people with diabetes don’t even know they have it.
So what can we as an industry do? There are already examples of positive action, like around chronic wound care, and there are some fantastic initiatives like World Kidney Day in Hong Kong, and World Heart Day. But it isn’t enough: there is a lot more healthcare companies can do.
