This post is authored by John Gordon Harold, MD, MACC, immediate past president of the ACC, and William A. Zoghbi, MD, MACC, past president of the ACC.

“A world that is greatly out of balance in matters of health is neither stable nor secure.” – Margaret Chan, MD, director-general of the World Health Organization.

This week marked a seminal, if under-recognized moment in the global fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs) – chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and mental illness. Health leaders from 194 nations gathered in Geneva for the 67th Annual World Health Assembly (WHA) – the largest and most important World Health Organization (WHO) meeting each year. As ACC past presidents, we represented the ACC at the event and engaged in numerous forums relating to cardiovascular disease. During the meeting, deliberations included NCDs, which were a focus of the landmark United Nations’ (UN) Summit on NCDs in 2011. This summit, only the second UN Summit ever to focus on health after the HIV/AIDS Summit of 2001, marked the global recognition of the fact that NCDs cause 63 percent of global death, with cardiovascular disease making up the highest proportion, yet receive disproportionately small funding from global aid networks – less than 1.3 percent by most recent estimates.  Worldwide, 80 percent of death from NCDs are in low and middle-income countries. Left unchecked, it is estimated that NCDs will be responsible for 73 percent of all deaths by 2020.

The ACC is a proud supporter of the NCD Alliance, a coalition of hundreds of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world that has led civil society in influencing events around NCDs at the WHO. The College is represented as the NGO Chair of the Supporters Consultation Group of the NCD Alliance. In addition, the ACC has led a cardiovascular disease specific effort in partnership with the American Heart Association, European Society of Cardiology, World Heart Federation, Asia Pacific Society of Cardiology, Inter-American Society of Cardiology, and others as a Global Cardiovascular Disease Taskforce. Together we have already co-published two advocacy papers in our respective journals shown here and here. Dr. Zoghbi currently serves as a co-chair of the Global Cardiovascular Disease Taskforce.

The ACC was proud to again leverage these partnerships in Geneva.  The NCD Alliance has been incredibly effective in influencing WHO activities to improve NCD prevention and treatment worldwide.  Last year, the WHO has passed a global target of a 25 percent reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2025 – known as “25 by 25.” The College and several other organizations have endorsed this important target as well as underlying disease specific WHO goals focusing on obesity, smoking cessation, diabetes and access to medicines among others.  All of these goals were solidified in a WHO Global Monitoring Framework and corresponding Global Action Plan that details the UN’s work that will be accomplished by 2020 in order to meet the 25 by 25 goal. In addition, this week the WHO is poised to pass a Global Coordination Mechanism (GCM) that lays out the UN groups and supporting non-government partners that will achieve this plan. The GCM is predicted to be disappointing in its scope and funding, but opens the door for the ACC to work with its global partners to implement innovative programming to drive the world towards the 25 by 25 goal.

In addition to our advocacy work, the ACC had the privilege of attending several events in Geneva. On Sunday, May 18, the ACC delegation attended the 5th Anniversary NCD Alliance dinner where leaders representing the spectrum of global health were present. On Monday, Dr. Zoghbi served as a panelist in a high-level discussion on strengthening accountability in the global NCD response co-sponsored by the NCD Alliance and The Lancet.  A video of the event can be seen here.  This standing room only event was chaired by Richard Horton, MD, editor of The Lancet, who opened by acknowledging the participation of ACC leadership at 67th World Health Assembly meeting and noted that the College is now poised to take a major leadership role in global health. He praised the efforts of the ACC to date and of the importance of our international mission as exemplified through our 31 International Chapters.

Overall, the meeting was a resounding success that brought together leaders in global health. The key to improving the quality of cardiovascular care worldwide is through global collaboration. The ACC stands at the forefront of these efforts proudly and looks forward to leveraging its membership – 10,000 of which now practice outside of the U.S. – to find innovation solutions to patient care. Among the ACC’s seven new pillars in its Strategic Plan stands population health. The College takes this not just to mean controlling hypertension in the patient population that enters our practice, but also the global population that suffers or will suffer from a disease that we all know too well. It was a tremendous honor for the College to be among so many dignitaries in Geneva working together to achieve a better future for our world.

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