Health system challenges to hypertension and related non-communicable diseases prevention and treatment: perspectives from Ghanaian stakeholders

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Abstract

Background

Hypertension, itself a cardiovascular condition, is a significant risk factor for other cardiovascular diseases. Hypertension is recognized as a major public health challenge in Ghana. Beginning in 2014, a collaborative team launched the community-based hypertension improvement program (ComHIP) in one health district in Ghana. The ComHIP project, a public-private partnership, tests a community-based model that engages the private sector and utilizes information and communication technology (ICT) to control hypertension. This paper, focuses on the various challenges associated with managing hypertension in Ghana, as reported by ComHIP stakeholders.

Methods

A total of 55 informants – comprising patients, health care professionals, licensed chemical sellers (LCS), national and sub-national policymakers – were purposively selected for interview and focus group discussions (FGDs). Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Where applicable, transcriptions were translated directly from local language to English. The data were then analysed using two-step thematic analysis. The protocol was approved by the two ethics review committees based in Ghana and the third, based in the United Kingdom. All participants were interviewed after giving informed consent.

Results

Our data have implications for the on-going implementation of ComHIP, especially the importance of policy maker buy-in, and the benefits, as well as drawbacks, of the program to different stakeholders. While our data show that the ComHIP initiative is acceptable to patients and healthcare providers – increasing providers’ knowledge on hypertension and patients’ awareness of same- there were implementation challenges identified by both patients and providers. Policy level challenges relate to task-sharing bottlenecks, which precluded nurses from prescribing or dispensing antihypertensives, and LCS from stocking same. Medication adherence and the phenomenon of medical pluralism in Ghana were identified challenges. The perspectives from the national level stakeholders enable elucidation of whole of health system challenges to ComHIP and similarly designed programmes.

Conclusions

This paper sheds important light on the patient/individual, and system level challenges to hypertension and related non-communicable disease prevention and treatment in Ghana. The data show that although the ComHIP initiative is acceptable to patients and healthcare providers, policy level task-sharing bottlenecks preclude optimal implementation of ComHIP.

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Most cited references 30

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National, regional, and global trends in systolic blood pressure since 1980: systematic analysis of health examination surveys and epidemiological studies with 786 country-years and 5·4 million participants.

Goodarz Danaei, Mariel M Finucane, John K Lin … (2011)

Data for trends in blood pressure are needed to understand the effects of its dietary, lifestyle, and pharmacological determinants; set intervention priorities; and evaluate national programmes. However, few worldwide analyses of trends in blood pressure have been done. We estimated worldwide trends in population mean systolic blood pressure (SBP). We estimated trends and their uncertainties in mean SBP for adults 25 years and older in 199 countries and territories. We obtained data from published and unpublished health examination surveys and epidemiological studies (786 country-years and 5·4 million participants). For each sex, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate mean SBP by age, country, and year, accounting for whether a study was nationally representative. In 2008, age-standardised mean SBP worldwide was 128·1 mm Hg (95% uncertainty interval 126·7-129·4) in men and 124·4 mm Hg (123·0-125·9) in women. Globally, between 1980 and 2008, SBP decreased by 0·8 mm Hg per decade (-0·4 to 2·2, posterior probability of being a true decline=0·90) in men and 1·0 mm Hg per decade (-0·3 to 2·3, posterior probability=0·93) in women. Female SBP decreased by 3·5 mm Hg or more per decade in western Europe and Australasia (posterior probabilities ≥0·999). Male SBP fell most in high-income North America, by 2·8 mm Hg per decade (1·3-4·5, posterior probability >0·999), followed by Australasia and western Europe where it decreased by more than 2·0 mm Hg per decade (posterior probabilities >0·98). SBP rose in Oceania, east Africa, and south and southeast Asia for both sexes, and in west Africa for women, with the increases ranging 0·8-1·6 mm Hg per decade in men (posterior probabilities 0·72-0·91) and 1·0-2·7 mm Hg per decade for women (posterior probabilities 0·75-0·98). Female SBP was highest in some east and west African countries, with means of 135 mm Hg or greater. Male SBP was highest in Baltic and east and west African countries, where mean SBP reached 138 mm Hg or more. Men and women in western Europe had the highest SBP in high-income regions. On average, global population SBP decreased slightly since 1980, but trends varied significantly across regions and countries. SBP is currently highest in low-income and middle-income countries. Effective population-based and personal interventions should be targeted towards low-income and middle-income countries. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and WHO. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Sub-Saharan Africa is facing a crisis in human health resources due to a critical shortage of health workers. The shortage is compounded by a high burden of infectious diseases; emigration of trained professionals; difficult working conditions and low motivation. In particular, the burden of HIV/AIDS has led to the concept of task shifting being increasingly promoted as a way of rapidly expanding human resource capacity. This refers to the delegation of medical and health service responsibilities from higher to lower cadres of health staff, in some cases non-professionals. This paper, drawing on Médecins Sans Frontières' experience of scaling-up antiretroviral treatment in three sub-Saharan African countries (Malawi, South Africa and Lesotho) and supplemented by a review of the literature, highlights the main opportunities and challenges posed by task shifting and proposes specific actions to tackle the challenges. The opportunities include: increasing access to life-saving treatment; improving the workforce skills mix and health-system efficiency; enhancing the role of the community; cost advantages and reducing attrition and international 'brain drain'. The challenges include: maintaining quality and safety; addressing professional and institutional resistance; sustaining motivation and performance and preventing deaths of health workers from HIV/AIDS. Task shifting should not undermine the primary objective of improving patient benefits and public health outcomes.

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Is Open Access

Overweight and obesity epidemic in Ghana—a systematic review and meta-analysis

Richard Ofori-Asenso, Akosua Agyeman, Amos Laar … (2016)

Background In many low and middle income countries (LMICs), the distribution of adulthood nutritional imbalance is shifting from a predominance of undernutrition to overnutrition. This complex problem poses a huge challenge to governments, non-state actors, and individuals desirous of addressing the problem of malnutrition in LMICs. The objective of this study was to systematically review the literature towards providing an estimate of the prevalence of overweight and obesity among adult Ghanaians. Methods This study followed the recommendations outlined in the PRISMA statement. Searches were performed in PubMed, Science Direct, google scholar, Africa Journals Online (AJOL) and the WHO African Index Medicus database. This retrieved studies (published up to 31st March 2016) that reported overweight and obesity prevalence among Ghanaians. All online searches were supplemented by reference screening of retrieved papers to identify additional studies. Results Forty-three (43) studies involving a total population of 48,966 sampled across all the ten (10) regions of Ghana were selected for the review. Our analysis indicates that nearly 43% of Ghanaian adults are either overweight or obese. The national prevalence of overweight and obesity were estimated as 25.4% (95% CI 22.2–28.7%) and 17.1% (95% CI = 14.7–19.5%), respectively. Higher prevalence of overweight (27.2% vs 16.7%) and obesity (20.6% vs 8.0%) were estimated for urban than rural dwellers. Prevalence of overweight (27.8% vs 21.8%) and obesity (21.9% vs 6.0%) were also significantly higher in women than men. About 45.6% of adult diabetes patients in Ghana are either overweight or obese. At the regional level, about 43.4%, 36.9%, 32.4% and 55.2% of residents in Ashanti, Central, Northern and Greater Accra region, respectively are overweight or obese. These patterns generally mimic the levels of urbanization. Per studies’ publication years, consistent increases in overweight and obesity prevalence were observed in Ghana in the period 1998–2016. Conclusions There is a high and rising prevalence of overweight and obesity among Ghanaian adults. The possible implications on current and future population health, burden of chronic diseases, health care spending and broader economy could be enormous for a country still battling many infectious and parasitic diseases. Public health preventive measures that are appropriate for the Ghanaian context, culturally sensitive, cost-effective and sustainable are urgently needed to tackle this epidemic. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3901-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Amos K. Laar:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5557-0164

aklaar@yahoo.com

Alma J. Adler: Alma_adler@hms.harvard.edu

Agnes M. Kotoh: amkotoh@ug.edu.gh

Helena Legido-Quigley: Helena.Legido-Quigley@lshtm.ac.uk

Isabelle L. Lange: Isabelle.Lange@lshtm.ac.uk

Pablo Perel: pablo.perel@lshtm.ac.uk

Peter Lamptey: plamptey@fhi360.org

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Health Serv Res

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Health Serv Res

Title: BMC Health Services Research

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1472-6963

Publication date (Electronic): 15 October 2019

Publication date PMC-release: 15 October 2019

Publication date Collection: 2019

Volume: 19

Electronic Location Identifier: 693

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1937 1485, GRID grid.8652.9, Department of Population, Family, & Reproductive Health, School of Public Health, , University of Ghana, ; LG 13, Legon, Accra, Ghana

[2 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0425 469X, GRID grid.8991.9, Department of Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology, , London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, ; Keppel St, London, WC1E 7HT UK

[3 ]ISNI 000000041936754X, GRID grid.38142.3c, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, , Harvard Medical School, ; Boston, MA USA

[4 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0425 469X, GRID grid.8991.9, Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, , London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, ; Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT UK

[5 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0300 5112, GRID grid.245835.d, Family Health International 360, ; DC, Washington, WA USA

[6 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2180 6431, GRID grid.4280.e, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, , National University of Singapore, ; 12 Science Drive 2, #10-01, Pulau Ujong, Singapore

Author information

Amos K. Laar http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5557-0164

Article

Publisher ID: 4571

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-019-4571-6

PMC ID: 6792211

PubMed ID: 31615529

SO-VID: 359dec44-98ab-4d0d-bcf0-2f7a29ce9ece

License:

Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

History

Date received : 2 July 2018

Date accepted : 30 September 2019

Funding

Funded by: Funds for the project was made available by Novartis Foundation, Basel, Switzerland

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: hypertension prevention and treatment,non-communicable diseases,stakeholders,challenges,ghana

Data availability: