Blog

Type: Advocacy and Media Assets

PEN-Plus – Bringing Care for Severe NCDs to the World’s Poorest Children and Young Adults

Short (6-minute) video introduces the PEN-Plus model for decentralizing integrated chronic care services for type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, rheumatic heart disease, and other severe NCDs that cause tens of thousands of avoidable deaths every year among the world’s poorest children and young adults. Video includes statements of support from leaders of WHO/AFRO, which has adopted a regional strategy to implement PEN-Plus continent-wide, UNICEF, WHO headquarters, the World Bank, and the Helmsley Charitable Trust.

PEN-Plus Policy Brief – Decentralizing lifesaving care for severe NCDs

8-page policy brief presents PEN-Plus as a proven model for decentralizing care and treatment for type 1 diabetes, sickle cell diseases, rheumatic and congenital heart disease, and other severe NCDs that cause hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths every year among the world’s poorest children and young adults.

PEN-Plus: Decentralizing life-saving care for the poorest billion

This 11-minute video shows how decentralizing and integrating chronic care services for type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, rheumatic and congenital heart disease, and other severe NCDs has brought lifesaving care to poor rural communities in Rwanda, Malawi, and Haiti … and how this PEN-Plus model is now expanding to other lower-income countries in Africa and South Asia.

 

Integration of NCDI Services Policy Brief

Progressive Decentralization and Integrated Care Teams –
Keys to Bridging the Gap in Services for NCDs and Injuries

Non-communicable diseases and injuries (NCDIs) account for a large and growing proportion of the burden of disease in all World Health Organizations (WHO) regions, including in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs). Among the world’s poorest billion people, NCDIs cause almost 800,000 deaths under the age of 40 every year – more than HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal deaths combined.

Proven, cost-effective, and equitable NCDI interventions exist that could save millions of lives each year, if scaled to reach everyone in need. But in many LLMICs, these interventions are available only at referral hospitals in capital cities, which makes them inaccessible and unaffordable for the rural poor.

The key to achieving both Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goal targets for reducing mortality from NCDIs is to develop and implement strategies for progressive decentralization and integrated service delivery that can deliver these interventions, with quality, at lower levels of the health system and in rural areas.

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