Across the year there is a calendar of global days and weeks devoted to non-communicable disease: cancer, hypertension, diabetes, sickle cell, stroke, kidney disease, tobacco, alcohol, clean air and mental health.
Each one is an opening. They are the moments when civil society organisations, health ministries, researchers and alliances like ours can reach the widest audience for the least money, raise awareness, and put a shared ask in front of the people who decide budgets. Below are the dates we plan around, with links to work that has taken place on them here and elsewhere.
Led by the Union for International Cancer Control. In Sierra Leone the natural focus is cervical and breast cancer, where the gap between what is detectable and what is detected is widest.
Find out more →Run by World Action on Salt, Sugar and Health. Directly relevant to the SLASH study, which is producing the first measured national salt intake figures for Sierra Leone.
Find out more →Kidney disease sits downstream of untreated hypertension and diabetes, which makes this a natural joint event with our cardiovascular and diabetes members.
Find out more →WHO's broadest platform of the year. The theme changes annually, so it is worth checking early whether it can be angled towards chronic disease.
Find out more →The single most important date in our calendar. More than one in four Sierra Leonean adults has high blood pressure and fewer than one in seven of them is on treatment. Community screening events work well on this day.
Find out more →Led locally by the Coalition Against Tobacco. Focused on enforcement of the national tobacco control legislation.
Find out more →Sierra Leone carries one of the highest sickle cell burdens in the world and still has no national newborn screening programme. Our sickle cell members lead this date.
Find out more →Run by the World Federation of Neurology. Stroke and epilepsy are the entry points here, both under-served in the district system.
Household air pollution from cooking fuel is a leading driver of chronic respiratory disease here. A joint date with the Lung Health Centre and the environment sector.
Find out more →Led by the World Heart Federation. Pairs naturally with hypertension screening and with rheumatic heart disease, one of the conditions PEN-Plus covers.
Find out more →The longest run of coverage available to us all year. Worth planning as a month-long campaign rather than a single event.
Led locally by the Mental Health Coalition. Mental health sits inside the NCD directorate at the Ministry, so this is a shared platform.
Stroke is where untreated hypertension ends up. The strongest single argument for investing in blood pressure control at primary care level.
Find out more →Our largest public event of the year. The Walk to Defeat Diabetes has become the anchor activity, bringing members and the public onto the streets of Freetown together.
Find out more →Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is barely diagnosed in Sierra Leone because spirometry is almost unavailable. Led by the Lung Health Centre.