Integrating NCD efforts into larger 'sustainability agenda'

"The time has come for the '[non-communicable disease (NCD)] agenda' to be integrated with the broader 'sustainability agenda,' and this was the focus of a joint meeting this week between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Lancet," Richard Smith, director of the United Health Group's chronic disease initiative, writes in the BMJ Group Blogs. Smith summarizes the meeting and discusses how "health is both an important outcome of development and an input to development." He concludes, "I'm now convinced that it doesn't make any sense for us to beat the NCD agenda on its own and that it must be absorbed into sustainable development" (2/13).