Mother’s Day is fast approaching, and provides members and supporters of organizations such as ours with an opportunity to reflect on the role of mothers in disease prevention. As we’ve… Read More

Our guest blogger, Carol Teutsch, M.D., is an endocrinologist who practiced in Atlanta for 20 years, caring for and learning from many women patients. She worked at a pharmaceutical company… Read More

CSIS held a blog contest on NCDs asking authors to answer the question “What should the key priority of the upcoming UN High Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases be and… Read More

A news report in The Times of India from earlier this month disclosed some significant news – it said that India’s Prime Minister, Mr. Manmohan Singh, is planning to attend… Read More

The NCD Alliance, by far the largest civil society group working to maximize the impact of the UN Summit on NCDs (Non-Communicable Diseases), has just released a document that articulates… Read More

Arogya World’s first guest blogger, Jeffrey Meer, is the Special Advisor of Global Health Policy and Development at The Public Health Institute. He conducts PHI’s Washington-based advocacy on global health,… Read More

Co-authored by Nalini Saligram, founder and CEO of Arogya World, and Jill Sheffield, founder and President of Women Deliver, this op-ed was also published on The Huffington Post. There are… Read More

Arogya World has received funding from Merck for its Diabetes Awareness and Prevention Education program in India’s schools. This support will allow Arogya World to educate 11-14-year-old school children through teacher- and peer-led classroom activities about diabetes and its complications, as well as how this serious disease could be prevented through increased physical activity and healthy eating habits.

The program will be piloted in some of Delhi’s schools through a partnership between Arogya World and youth NGO HRIDAY-SHAN, adapting their successful school-based tobacco control model for diabetes education, using credible authority figures like teachers and peer-leaders to teach the benefits of healthy living to young children before their lifestyle habits are set. According to Arogya World founder Nalini Saligram, “Non-profit organizations like ours cannot do the work we want to do without the support of sponsors and partners. This is important work, at the core of our diabetes prevention offering in India, and we are so pleased we can begin implementation with support from Merck.”

Behavior change is one of the hardest challenges we face in chronic disease control. Study after study has shown that it is extremely difficult to entice people to increase their physical activity and eat a more healthy diet.

With this knowledge, Arogya World has assembled medical experts, behavior change experts, and consumer experts from around the world to form a new Behavior Change Task Force. Members of the Task Force will donate their time, knowledge and insights to help Arogya World create scientifically sound, practical strategies that will encourage people to make meaningful and lasting lifestyle changes to prevent diabetes. The Task Force will periodically meet to review materials and messages used by Arogya World in India, where the prevalence of chronic disease has skyrocketed.

Quite simply, this Task Force – and the combined knowledge and expertise of its individual members – is a powerful weapon in our arsenal in the global fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

Another Important Development in the Fight Against NCDs

Earlier this month, on World Cancer Day (February 4th), the World Health Organization (WHO) issued physical activity guidelines on how regular exercise can contribute to the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). These Global Recommendations on Physical Activity For Health are an exciting development, providing clear, actionable information on the type and amount of physical activity considered most beneficial for the promotion of good health and the prevention of chronic disease. The WHO guidelines add to the world’s preparation for the UN Summit on NCDs to be held on September 19th and 20th, 2011, giving policy makers tools and data they may rely upon as they build national policies, and giving advocacy groups much-needed information that they can use to get more attention to NCD prevention.

According to the report, “physical inactivity is associated with 3.2 million deaths per year, including 2.6 million in low and middle-income countries.”

The report states that, “at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week for people aged 18 and over can reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases, including breast and colon cancers, diabetes and heart disease.”