Individuals: Key players in promoting Global Health

The actions of individuals and their relationship to health promotion are more relevant today than ever in the status of global health across communities. The health scenario is positioned at unique crossroads as the world is facing a ‘triple burden of diseases’ constituted by the unfinished agenda of communicable diseases, newly emerging and re-emerging diseases as well as the unprecedented rise of noncommunicable chronic diseases. Unfortunately the burden of chronic diseases has been on the rise and, according to the latest WHO data released in 2012 non- communicable diseases (NCDs), is the leading causes of death worldwide. In 2008, 80 percent of NCD deaths were in developing countries, up from 40 percent in 1990. NCDs will steadily increase the number of healthy years (or disability-adjusted life years—DALYs) lost in middle-income countries, but the loss will increase very quickly in low-income countries. By 2030, low-income countries will have eight times more deaths attributed to NCDs than high-income countries. The role of individuals in adapting health lifestyles is crucial in reducing the socio- economic burden caused by NCDs. An example of an effective strategy that reduced smoking rates nationally as the result of a health promotion campaign launched in Thailand with donor assistance from overseas and this focused on individual behaviors which resulted in positive outcomes on a national level. The smoking rates dropped in 1991from 59 percent among males to 40 in 2009 and in females from 5 to 2 percent as well.