Cambodia NCDI Poverty Commission Meets for Priority-Setting Workshop

The Cambodia NCDI Poverty Commission took a big step in March by reviewing key findings of the country’s situation analysis and conducting a workshop to form recommendations on which noncommunicable conditions and interventions to prioritize based on burden, severity, and equity.

The group reviewed key points from the situation analysis, which found a discrepancy between health expenditures and the burden of disease in Cambodia. Only 30 percent of health funding targets NCDs, which account for nearly 60 percent of the disease burden.

The situation analysis found that NCDs are now the leading cause of death and DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) in Cambodia. According to the data, a significant proportion of NCDs in Cambodia fall outside the 4x4 NCD framework that focuses on four conditions (cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, and cancers) and four behavioral risk factors (tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diets, and physical inactivity). Additionally, the situation analysis concluded that although NCDs are considered conditions of the elderly, more than half of the NCD-caused DALYs occur at younger ages.

During the priority-setting workshop, the Commission ranked a number of interventions for severe NCDs that are outside the 4x4 model — including rheumatic heart disease, pediatric and women’s cancers, epilepsy, as well as moderate to severe anxiety and depression — as either high or medium priorities.

Commission members’ next step will be to prepare a summary of recommendations and validate the preliminary findings by consulting with additional experts.

Representatives of the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, implementing partner KHANA, the National Institute for Public Health, and the NCDI Poverty Network secretariat participated in the event.