New Disease Control Priorities Volumes released
Associate professor Kjell Arne Johansson has contributed to two new volumes on the important project Disease Control Priorities. In the new volumes just released, world leading experts provide new insight to the literature on investments in Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (Volume two) and on Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders (Volume four).
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The main findings of these volumes are also presented in two papers published in the Lancet.
We are proud that Johansson has contributed by the important Extended Cost-Effectiveness Analysis included in this work, a new and advanced analysis incorporating concerns to equity and financial protection in the investment analysis.
From press release on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn & Child Health
Investing in quality childbirth and family planning can quadruple returns on investment by reducing maternal and neonatal mortality, preventing stillbirth and reducing disabilities, according to new findings presented in the forthcoming volume of Disease Control Priorities, 3rd Edition (DCP3) on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health (RMNCH). Dr. Marleen Temmerman, volume editor and Chair of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Aga Khan University, Nairobi says, “While we have seen large reductions in maternal and child death over the last few decades, progress could be accelerated by making a suite of essential, cost-effective interventions more widely accessible. We found that scaling up interventions from existing levels to 90% coverage would avert 149,000 maternal deaths, 849,000 stillbirths, 1.5 million neonatal deaths and 1.5 million child deaths in the current year.”
Published by the World Bank Group, the DCP3 RMNCH volume considers the impact on maternal, newborn, and child deaths and illness, as well as the cost and cost-effectiveness, of scaling up interventions and delivery platforms. The volume highlights contraception, labor and delivery management, infectious disease treatment, and management of severe acute malnutrition as a few of the highest priority interventions for low-income countries.
These services are included in DCP3’s essential packages for maternal, newborn, and child health for low-resource settings. The packages emphasize the importance of cost-effective interventions to promote growth and development. Dr. Robert Black, lead volume editor and Director for the Institute of International Programs at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public health, hopes that this volume will change how resources are allocated to reproductive, maternal and child health conditions. “The high priority interventions addressed in our volume’s three essential packages are affordable in low-and middle-income countries and can be implemented for $3.9 –6.7 USD per capita. Specifically, the interventions that have the highest impact on deaths include labor and delivery management; care of preterm births; infectious disease treatment; and severe acute malnutrition management.””
From Press release on mental, neurological, and substance use
“Mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) disorders now account for nearly 1 in 10 years of lost health globally. Despite the substantial impact these illnesses can have on the health, social, and economic wellbeing of individuals, families, and societies, MNS disorders have been widely neglected, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Volume 4 of Disease Control Priorities, 3rd Edition (DCP3) serves to address the inequalities in prevention and treatment of MNS disorders by governments and development agencies around the world, by providing evidence on policies and interventions that should be prioritized in resource-constrained settings. As Dr. Vikram Patel, lead volume editor and Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explains, “the evidence on the burden of these disorders and the health and economic impacts of a range of scalable interventions to address them is compelling. It is now the time to act to tackle what may be the most neglected group of health conditions globally.” The over 50 editors and authors have organized MNS disorders into five groups within the volume: adult mental disorders, child mental and developmental disorders, neurological disorders, alcohol and illicit drug use disorders, and suicide and self-harm.
Similar to other DCP3 volumes, Mental, Neurological, and Substance Use Disorders focuses on the need for evidence on effective and cost-effective interventions, which can be appropriately implemented across a range of population, community, and health care delivery platforms. Notes editor Dr. Dan Chisholm, Health Systems Advisor at the World Health Organization, “the volume shows that to move towards universal health coverage for persons with these disorders there is an evident need to not only substantially scale-up the availability and delivery of an essential package of care, but also provide improved levels of financial protection.” Providing a specified package of cost-effective interventions for prioritized MNS disorders is estimated to cost $3–4 US per capita per year in low- and lower-middle-income countries, and at least double that in upper-middle-income countries.”
