India has the double burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. Diabetes and hypertension are among the fastest growing diseases in India with over 70 million diabetics and over 200 million hypertensives in the country. This is prevalent not only among the rich, but also among the poor, living in the remote villages. These non-communicable diseases, if left uncontrolled, can lead to numerous complications, hospitalization, disability and even death. Diabetes and hypertension are silent killers as they have few symptoms and detection happens only at later stages when complications have already occurred. More than 60% of the deaths among the adults, happening in India, are due to cardiovascular disease for which the underlying cause is diabetes or hypertension.
CHAI leads and facilitates the implementation of Project HealthRise in Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Project HealthRise is a global initiative in four countries (USA, India, South Africa and Brazil) to improve detection and management of diabetes and hypertension. The initiative is supported by Medtronic Foundation, coordinated by Abt Associates and the evaluation partner is Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation. This is done in collaboration with the government for sustainability reasons. Innovative solutions were designed around the following areas:
Empowering the community to recognize and manage the diseases,
Building the capacity of frontline government health workers
Policy and advocacy activities to rally for the cause of disease prevention
Use of sustainable transport to reach facilities in difficult terrain
Call centers for patient reminders
Electronic information management systems
SALT (Stimulate, Approach, Listen, Transfer) approach
Through the initiative, 53087 people were made aware of the disease symptoms and risk factors, 26559 people were screened at village camps and 1274 people were referred for further diagnosis and treatment. A total of 1048 medical officers, private doctors, pharmacists, ANM, ASHA and outreach workers underwent trainings and refresher trainings. A cohort of 841 diabetics and hypertensives were followed up for a period of two years through home visits, reminders by phone calls and SMS. 235 patient support groups were organized involving 3146 participants.
