A sharp reduction in the consumption of unhealthy foods, tobacco and alcohol use and diminished air pollution are among the priorities which the Caribbean must embrace urgently if the region is to shed the dubious distinction of having the highest mortality rate in the Americas resulting from cardiovascular disease, the Trinidad and Tobago-based Caribbean Public Health Association (CARPHA) is saying.
CARPHA’s recent disclosure points out that hypertension or raised blood pressure – the leading risk factors for cardiovascular diseases worldwide – have now become an urgent public health emergency in the Caribbean, accounting for 418 per 100,000 population. This bespeaks a region that has, over time, among other things, largely forsaken its abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables for imported foods that now cost the countries an estimated cumulative total of around US$5 billion annually.
According to CARPHA Executive Director Dr Joy St. John, “the Caribbean region has the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure in the Americas ranging from a high of 27.1 percent to a low of 20.9 %. It is, she adds, “a cause for concern and action when in all Caribbean countries, hypertension is above the regional average for the Americas.”
The disclosure comes less than a week after the Tuesday May 17 global commemoration of World Hypertension Day and in the wake of decidedly lacklustre efforts by governments across the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to seriously shift gears in terms of having diets in the region embrace more closely the consumption of fruits and vegetables. It comes as well during a year being celebrated globally as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, but when no country in the region, including its agricultural giant, Guyana, appears to have made any serious discernable effort to plan and visibly execute a suitable programme.
World Hypertension Day, this year, was commemorated under the theme: “Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer.”
And against the background of the regional emergency which this disclosure represents, CARPHA is calling on governments, civil society, private sector, academia, community-based organisations, and faith-based organisations, to take a whole-of-society approach and work together to reduce the prevalence of hypertension by 25 per cent by 2025 and premature mortality by a third by 2030.
Accordingly, the regional public health organisation is advocating the Caribbean-wide pursuit of a set of goals that include the initiation of public education campaigns to improve knowledge, attitude, and practice towards hypertension prevention and control; establishing community screening programmes for the early detection of high blood pressure; ensuring capacity building of the health care workforce to accurately measure blood pressure; preventing and treating hypertension; promoting and supporting policies to assist with stress management; increasing physical activity; and reducing unhealthy food environment, tobacco use, alcohol use and air pollution.
Other CARPHA-driven policies and guidelines include implementation of a six-point policy package to create a healthy food environment, such as, the implementation of the octagon-shaped front-of-package warning label “High-IN” model, where research has shown within and outside of the Caribbean to be the best performing system to help consumers correctly, quickly and easily identify products that contain excessive amounts of critical nutrients.
Additionally, CARPHA has developed a framework for reduction of salt in diets in the region given the major risk that high content poses for hypertension.
