A worldwide network of research and training centers will build institutional and community capacity to prevent and control chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular, lung diseases, and diabetes, announced the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NHLBI is awarding 10 contracts totaling more than $34 million in this effort. The NHLBI joins with Minneapolis-based UnitedHealth Group's existing Chronic Disease Initiative (UnitedHealth CDI) in establishing the "UnitedHealth and NHLBI Collaborating Centers of Excellence" (COEs) network.

Each COE is led by a research institution in a low- or middle-income developing country paired with at least one partner academic institution in a developed country to enhance research and training opportunities. A signed Statement of Joint Commitment between the NHLBI and UnitedHealth Group, one of the world's largest health and well-being companies, underscores their collaborative efforts to address chronic disease globally.

A comment on the program, "Combating Chronic Disease in Developing Countries - Partners in Progress," by NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D., Simon Stevens, president, Global Health, at UnitedHealth Group, and Richard Smith, M.D., director of UnitedHealth CDI, will be published online in The Lancet June 11, and in the June 13 print edition.
The NHLBI will fund six centers in Bangladesh, China, Guatemala, India (Bangalore and New Delhi), and South Africa. These centers are also receiving funding from United Health Group's CDI. The NHLBI is funding three additional centers in Argentina, Kenya and Peru; and United Health CDI funds two centers located at the U.S.-Mexico border and in Tunisia.

"Scientific discovery knows no boundaries - and neither do chronic diseases, which are increasingly affecting the young and the elderly, the rich and the poor, and every ethnic group in every nation," said Nabel.
Writing in The Lancet, Nabel and co-authors note, "Rigorous research undertaken in a collaborative fashion at globally diverse sites will also enrich our basic understanding of disease causation and, in particular, of the interplay between biological, environmental, and sociocultural contributors to public health."

According to the World Health Organization, chronic diseases - primarily cardiovascular diseases, chronic lung diseases, some cancers, and type 2 diabetes - account for more than half of deaths worldwide, of which 80 percent occur in low- and middle-income countries. Furthermore, each year more than 35 million people worldwide die from chronic noncommunicable diseases.

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