Citation

Bhattacharya S, Heidler P, Varshney S. Front. Public Health 2023; 10: e1093170.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Frontiers Editorial Office)

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2022.1093170

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Poor nations are already facing the heat of double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), often known as chronic illnesses, which are characterized by a protracted course and are multifactorial in causation. In addition to this, neglected non-communicable diseases (NNCD) in the form of gout, sickle cell disease, accidents and many more are likely to be one of the biggest public health challenges soon. Nearly three-quarters (31.4 million) of all NCD-related fatalities occur in developing nations. In terms of morbidity and mortality, the "BIG FOUR" NCDs--diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and cardiovascular diseases--are widely acknowledged as the main contributors to global health loss. However, other NCDs account for 55% of the global burden of NCDs and are frequently neglected in terms of premature death, increased Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY), and decreased Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY). We have briefly discussed the disease burden of a few significant, yet neglected NCDs in this paper...

...Accidents (drowning and road accidents)

Drowning

According to estimates, 236,000 individuals globally perished from drowning in 2019, making it a serious public health issue. In 2019, injuries made up nearly 8% of all fatalities worldwide. Seven percent of all injury-related deaths are caused by drowning. A 2019 Lancet analysis on estimates of "healthy life" lost in India projected that there were ~62,000 drowning deaths in 2017 (58).

Road accidents

As per ILO estimates, around 2.3 million men and women die each year from occupational injuries or accidents, or more than 6,000 people per day. Every year, nearly 160 million cases of occupational injuries and 340 million workplace accidents occur worldwide (59). Referring to a World Bank study, despite owning only 1% of all vehicles, India accounts for 11% of all road deaths worldwide, the greatest concentration in the world. Over 4.5 lakh road accidents occur in the country each year, with 1.5 lakh persons killed (50). According to the Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India 2020, a total of 354,796 “road accident” instances were registered in 2020, resulting in 335,050 injuries and 133,201 fatalities. In comparison to 2019, the number of unintentional deaths (per lakh of the population) has dropped in 2020. In the year 2020, a total of 374,397 people lost their life due to accident (60).

Language: en