Leading an equitable response to NCDs in India
Leading an equitable response to NCDs in India
India’s NCD burden is growing, but not everyone has an equal chance to prevent, detect or treat these chronic conditions. This blog shares new evidence from Delhi and Hyderabad on who is being left behind – and how equity, empathetic care and lived experience leadership can drive a fairer NCD response.
The 2024 blog, Towards Equitable NCD Care in India, by the Healthy India Alliance/India NCD Alliance (HIA) underscored the need for equity-driven noncommunicable disease (NCD) response and the critical role of meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs and community voices. Building on the momentum for the Fourth UN High-Level Meeting (HLM4) on NCDs, we at HIA, together with HRIDAY and the Indian Institute of Public Health – Hyderabad, conducted an assessment across two distinct geographic and social contexts, in North India (New Delhi) and in South India (Hyderabad).
The assessment highlighted deep inequities in NCD prevention and care, identifying who faces disproportionate barriers, why they are left behind, and how stakeholders can lead the translation of equity commitments into concrete action. A comprehensive Report on NCDs and Health Equity in India was released at the 9th National Consultations on NCDs under the theme #LeadOnNCDs, to ensure no one is left behind. The report was further disseminated in a sub-national Roundtable Meeting on NCDs and Health Equity.
Aligned with the NCD Alliance’s Call to Lead and UNHLM 2025 theme, Equity and integration: transforming lives and livelihoods, these initiatives brought together important stakeholders representing government, civil society, medical professionals, lived experience champions, academics, researchers, social scientists, and the private sector. A key win for our Alliance was that India’s official interventions at the UNHLM echoed our findings, emphasising equity and empathetic care, lived experience expertise, and multistakeholder leadership, as national priorities.
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