Charting solutions to the non-communicable diseases challenge

Three quarters of all people worldwide will die from a non-communicable disease (NCD) like diabetes or cardiovascular disease, most prematurely, and nearly all requiring a serious medical intervention either towards or at the end of their life. And yet, many NCDs are either preventable or could be better managed earlier, providing people with healthier longevity while also heavily reducing healthcare costs.

Last month, at the World Economic Forum's 2026 Annual Meeting, participants were unanimous in their calls for new ways to manage the NCD burden, stressing that we currently have a potentially short window in which to radically change strategy.

Among the key obstacles to change has been an inability to “succinctly define what is at stake,” according to Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association.

In part, this reflects the disjoint between the short-term cycle of how healthcare policies are funded and the long-term benefits and gains. But it means that attempts to “bring this to life as it relates to actual people” have been lacking, Brown said. It also belies that fact that there is a huge “diversity and variation on the ground in people’s lives”, including “habit and local culture,” which suggests the need for different approaches throughout the world.

There’s also the fundamental problem that people have been conditioned to think that they “only really need to respond when [they] are actually sick,” Brown noted. Added to this, advances in medical science have made many conditions that people would once have feared contracting, manageable.

Finally, there’s the issue of incentive. With existing companies focused on technologies and supplies oriented towards treatment, where’s the incentive to change?

Healthcare costs, including healthcare insurance and productivity losses, for businesses, are escalating. According to the WHO, productivity losses in Europe alone are estimated to stand at more than $514.5 billion a year. As Shamsheer Vayalil, Founder and Chair of Burjeel Holdings, put it: “I don’t think anyone can afford to pay such massive healthcare expenses, and every government wants to save costs.”

Yet, the way we approach NCDs hasn’t changed for many years. With the advent of AI, particularly agentic AI, new possibilities have been created. Several participants supported this idea, but warned that it’s a narrow window of opportunity.

One point that was repeatedly stressed was the need to view the situation through a wider lens. It’s not just a healthcare issue, but one that affects and interacts with systems like food, and society more broadly. It’s also one with which it was suggested different agencies should be involved, including the WHO, IMF and central banks.

Food was regarded as a key starting point. In the US, more than 50% of women over the age of 22 already have one cardiovascular risk factor, with obesity highlighted as a major issue.

AAK’s CEO, Johan Westman, called for greater attention to be paid to food systems, with questions focused on how food is produced and delivered, how can affordable food be distributed, and how can we ensure “healthy food is available to the many”.

He explained the work that is under way to reformulate foods and innovate ingredients, including replacing damaging saturated and trans-fats in foodstuffs with healthier fats. As far as the consumer is concerned, the product is the same, but these types of changes allow for impact at scale.

On the other side of the equation is the role of citizens. On an individual basis, the onus is on people to make better choices about what they consume, their level of activity, and the lifestyles they pursue. Those speaking suggested that there should be incentives offered for good citizenship and good values.

To support this, it was argued that the wider narrative about NCDs had to change to one where it’s regarded as a “lifestyle issue rather than a disease or scaremongering”. Here, Vayalil called for diseases like diabetes to be “rebranded” and suggested the need for “new actors to pitch in”.

Moving beyond the individual, support was shown for the idea of bringing the NCD issue into schools and helping manage it within – and with the support of – communities. The Truth Initiative in the US was highlighted as an example of a campaign that has been particularly successful, with children educated about the risks of tobacco use then pressing family members to stop smoking.

Specific policy options included the creation of an NCD bond, the creation of a health credit market modelled along the same lines as carbon credits, increasing taxation on items like sugary snacks and drinks, and creating an Amazon-like business for the health sector.

It’s taken time to arrive at this situation, but as Brown put it “something drastic has to change”.