Jamaicans are eating and drinking themselves to death

Dr Tufton’s recent presentation in Parliament should be an eye-opener for all Jamaicans. According to the minister, lifestyle choices are pushing persons to serious illnesses which can lead to earlier death.

Declare NCD emergency

Jamaica Gleaner

11 May 2023

IF CHRISTOPHER Tufton’s data on the health of Jamaicans are followed to the logical conclusion, it seems that the island is at risk of reversing one of its more significant achievements of recent decades: life expectancy at First-World standards.

The problem, as has long been identified, is that people are increasingly eating and drinking their way to preventable illnesses, and earlier deaths. Which is bad for the victims and, of course, their families. But it also comes with other downsides:

. The increased cost of treating people in the public health system, which is borne by taxpayers; and

. A longer-term drag on the economy when significant chunks of what should be people’s productive lives are lost.

The good thing is that a turnaround need not cost a lot of money. The bulk of the solutions rests with lifestyle changes rather than massive investments in medical technology. But turnaround will demand concentrated effort by policymakers and health professionals in encouraging people to make changes to how they eat, drink and exercise, as well as a willingness to take tough regulatory decisions on what food processors and manufacturers have to tell consumers about their products.

Depending on whose statistics you use, the average Jamaican, at birth, can expect to live between 74 and 75 years. Women outlive men by up to four years. Yet, in 1970 the average lifespan hovered at just below 68 years. Two decades earlier, it was a smidgen over 57.

DYING YOUNGER

Christopher Tufton, the health and wellness minister, used a life expectancy of 75 years when he addressed Parliament on the state of the country’s health and what he is doing to improve it.

That Jamaicans now live up to 10 per cent longer than 50 years ago is due, in large part, to increased access to healthcare, including a vastly improved public health service. These days, far fewer babies die at birth, and communicable diseases, which used to cause significant amounts of deaths, are now held farther at bay.

A new scourge has, however, emerged and is advancing rapidly, that is, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes, hypertension and a raft of related conditions, including cancers.

For example, health officials estimate that one in three Jamaicans are hypertensive, while half the country is overweight, with 13 per cent being diabetic. A significant percentage do not know their health status.

According to Dr Tufton, 22,022 people died in Jamaica in 2020, of whom 12,747, roughly 58 per cent, had not yet reached 75.

“This represents 296,578 years of potential life lost in 2020, a 19 per cent increase in the potential years of life lost, or 57,645 more years lost in one year, compared to a decade ago (2011),” the minister said. “This analysis revealed that Jamaicans are dying younger.”

Notably, NCDs were the biggest culprit, accounting, according to the health ministry’s data, for “144,853 potential years of life lost”.

Not only were NCDs responsible for 49 per cent of the years prematurely lost, its ‘contribution’ represented a 30 per cent (33,775 years) increase from a decade earlier.

This increase in deaths from NCDs was greater, by 11 percentage points, than for all other causes combined.

UNCONDITIONAL PROBABILITY

That people are dying from NCDs is, of itself, a matter of concern. What is even more worrying is the rampaging certainty of these deaths.

As Dr Tufton pointed out, in the Americas, the unconditional probability of premature deaths (they would have occurred regardless of what other conditions were in play) from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory illnesses of people in the 30 to 70 age range was estimated at 14 per cent in 2019.

In Jamaica, the unconditional probability of death from the same diseases in the same age span rose from 17 per cent in 2009 to 21 per cent in 2020 – a hike of 24 per cent.

Six years ago, the health ministry estimated that by 2030 it would cost Jamaica around J$80 billion in lost productivity and for treating diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. That momentum is likely to be faster than originally predicted.

Indeed, Dr Tufton reported that the expenditure by the National Health Fund, the government agency that subsidises drugs for beneficiaries, was rising at 20 per cent a year, putting significant stress on the fund, a big chunk of which goes to drugs for NCDs.

This newspaper previously recommended to the Government that it declares a national emergency on NCDs, dealing with the issue as an existential threat. That need remains urgent.

An aggressive, sustained, multisectoral, crossparty campaign for lifestyle changes by Jamaica must be accompanied by policies that require food manufacturers to not only uses less sugar, salt and trans fats in their products, but to carry clear, easily understood front-of-label information, including symbols, about salt, sugar, and fat content.

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