Five-year plan sets goals to combat diseases

A three-day strategic planning effort to rally dedication to combating noncommunicable diseases in the CNMI ended yesterday with participants signing a document that commits them to the goals of the program.

The commitment, signed by more than 30 government agencies, private businesses, community organizations and community members, marked the completion of a five-year strategic plan that was recently formulated with the help of the World Health Organization to aid the CNMI in its efforts to minimize the prevalence of NCDs, which include cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic pulmonary disease and diabetes.

A multisectoral working group has been laboring for more than a month to draft the document that will represent the five-year strategic plan for improvement and will soon be finalized and formally acknowledged as legitimate.

Dr. Temo Waqanivalu of WHO’s South Pacific Office wants the document done by September this year.

The working group responsible for the document will shepherd the plan’s journey through the finalization process, after which its goals will be enacted into government policy and community programs.

Discussed throughout the planning was the need for the plan’s facilitators to work to achieve environmental and lifestyle changes for CNMI residents, as well as the augmentation of existing healthcare services to aid those who are already victims of NCDs.

Plans were also drafted to institute new programs, as well as revamp existing ones, to battle the common risk factors for NCDs, which include tobacco use, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity.

The focus on NCDs prompts questions as to the driving forces behind their disturbingly high prevalence in the CNMI. According to Dr. Waqanivalu, the islands’ close association with the highly-developed United States that once served to establish Saipan as a beacon of prosperity in the Pacific has now proven to be a double-edged sword. Dr. Waqanivalu said that because of the CNMI’s close association with a much-developed world, residents have been continuously exposed to an environment rife with choices, inadvertently creating a situation in which “the healthy choice is not the easiest choice.” A history of foreign involvement and dietary intervention was noted to have left the islands vulnerable to the effects of their own prosperity, past and present.