How Maldives is promoting healthy lifestyle choices to reverse the NCD burden

For Ali Mohammad, a 33-year-old property management worker who started smoking in his teens, the saying ‘health is wealth’ has special significance. After Maldives hiked import duties on tobacco products to 60% of retail price in May 2017, Ali made a potentially life-saving decision. “My health and pocket were suffering,” he explained. “Obviously, this was becoming a more and more costly habit for me. I decided to quit.” That is exactly the response Maldives’ Ministry of Health set out to encourage. As Health Minister Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim emphasized on World No Tobacco Day, “Smoking brings nothing but harm to everyone,”…
Read More

World Health Statistics 2022

20 May 2022 – Geneva: The World Health Organization has published its latest comprehensive set of World Health Statistics for 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic – which led to an estimated 4.5 million excess deaths in that year. The statistics reveal the extent to which the pandemic has affected health systems worldwide, in some cases severely restricting access to vital services. These disruptions are likely to set back global progress on both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy made in the first 20 years of the century. Global life expectancy at birth had increased from 66.8 years…
Read More

the scale of the challenge

Using local authority estimates has important implications for policy. We look at how these estimates are used in the indicators, as well as how they compare to other measures of geographical inequalities in healthy life expectancy. Construction of the healthy life expectancy indicator Taking a broader range of local authorities, rather than the extremes of highest and lowest, helps to account for outliers with potentially unique circumstances. For example, in 2017–19 a girl born in the Orkney Islands was expected to have 75.1 years of good health, compared to a girl born in Blackpool with a healthy life expectancy of…
Read More

Aging with grace: Grab the key to a long and healthy life

PHOTO | AALIYAH BOWDEN Carolyn Cabral of Charlotte is part of a relatively exclusive club as a nonagenarian, or person between the ages of 90-99. In November, Carbal, 99, will reach a rarer milestone in November when he turned 100 – there were around 1,800 in North Carolina in 2021 according to the Population Division of the United Nations. What’s the secret to a long, healthy life? For Carolyn Cabral, who lives in Charlotte, it is playing bingo twice a week with friends and Zumba once a week.…
Read More

Healthy habits can lengthen life

At a Glance Researchers found that people who maintained five healthy lifestyle factors lived more than a decade longer than those who didn’t maintain any of the five. The results suggest that Americans can increase the length of their lives and lower their disease risk by adopting a healthier lifestyle. Americans don’t live as long as people in most other high-income countries. Heart disease and cancer are two of the most common preventable chronic diseases in the United States. An unhealthy lifestyle increases your risk for these and other chronic diseases that can lead to early death. To explore the…
Read More

Adaranijo Clears Air On Ilera Eko Health Insurance Scheme For APPSN Members

The chairman, Association of Private Practicing Surveyors of Nigeria(APPSN) Lagos branch Mr. Adaranijo Rafiu yesterday cleared the air on the enrollment of its members in Ilera Eko health insurance scheme propelled by Lagos State government, urging members to take their health as priority. Ìlera Èkó is the name given to Lagos State’s social health insurance scheme. Available statistics show Lagos State government has enrolled approximately 923,000 residents into the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme, popularly known as Ilera-Eko, since inception. Adaranijo who spoke at the body’s 2024 Annual General Meeting and luncheon with the theme, “Sustainable Financial Solution and Understanding…
Read More

OPM taps insurance carriers to service new USPS benefits exchange

US Postal Service employees and their dependents now know the health insurance that will be available to them next year as part of a new exchange. Office of Personnel Management officials said on March 12 that the agency had conditionally approved 32 carrier applications to provide insurance coverage on the new Postal Service Health Benefits Program, with the plans servicing 1.9 million USPS employees, annuitants and eligible family members starting Jan. 1. The PSHB, established by the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act, provides USPS employees, retirees and dependents their own health insurance exchange, while officially moving them off of the…
Read More

Why is healthy food so expensive in America? Blame the Farm Bill that Congress always renews to make burgers cheaper than salad

The 2023 Farm Bill is projected to spend $700 billion over the next five years, with powerful industry lobbyists directing funds to enrich themselves at the expense of agricultural communities, human health, animal welfare, and environmental sustainability. It’s far from its original intention: to help struggling farmers and hungry citizens during The Great Depression and Dustbowl. This year, with growing awareness about the myriad harms of our factory farm system, we have a critical opportunity to shift Farm Bill programs to serve our nation and our planet better. Most Americans have never heard of this massive omnibus bill, which Congress…
Read More