Stroke and NCD Dialogue 2023: Acting on Stroke and NCDs Preventing and responding to stroke to work towards Universal Health Coverage

04 Oct 2023

At the upcoming 15^th World Stroke Congress, taking place 10-12 October in Toronto (Canada) the Stroke and NCD Dialogue will take place as a series of four in person sessions. These session will be interative discussions about stroke and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) between a range of stakeholders within the stroke community. The Stroke and NCD Dialogue 2023 is co-hosted by World Stroke Organization, American Stroke Association, Heart & Stroke Foundation Canada and NCD Alliance.

NCDs, including stroke and heart disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and other mental and neurological disorders, share common risk factors and health systems challenges. The solutions to lowering NCD mortality exist within the successful implementation of NCDs prevention and care policy and the progressive achievement of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) globally. UHC is a commitment stating that the highest attainable standard of health is a fundamental human right and ensures financial protection from high out-of-pocket healthcare payments and access to quality essential healthcare services, medicines and vaccines for all.

At the first UN High-Level Meeting (HLM) on UHC in 2019, the 2019 UN Political Declaration on UHC was adopted to accelerate progress on achieving UHC by 2030. On 21 September 2023, the global health community convened once more at the HLM on UHC to advance the UHC agenda. In the lead up to this HLM, the NCD Alliance community called on governments to uphold their commitments to UHC across the three dimensions of service coverage, financial coverage and population coverage. This call was centred around four advocacy priorities: 1) Engage people living with NCDs to keep UHC people-centred; 2) Accelerate UHC implementation by including NCD prevention and care services in national UHC health benefit packages; 3) Invest in the prevention and control of NCDs through adequate resources for UHC and 4) Align development and global health priorities to achieve UHC. The sessions within the 2023 Stroke and NCD Dialogue each focus on one of these NCD Alliance UHC advocacy priorities and aim to demonstrate the importance of moving from a single disease approach to an integrated service delivery approach across the continuum of care, in order to achieve the progressive realisation of UHC. This NCD Dialogue is a timely opportunity for open discussions as we progress from the HLM on UHC and build momentum towards the next HLM on NCDs in 2025 at the national and global level. Will you be at WSC2023 in person? Join us for four interactive sessions with experts from across a variety of stakeholders and regions!

The four sessions are as follows:

SESSION 1

Tuesday 10 October, 09:30 - 10:00 EDT | Meaningful engagement of People Living with Stroke: How can we ensure the involvement of stroke survivors and caregivers to keep Universal Health Coverage people centred?   

Objectives:

Showcase the impacts that people living with stroke can have on progressive achievement of UHC, such as through engagement with country UHC social accountability mechanisms.
Explore the role of stroke support organisations (SSOs) to put lived experience at the centre of the stroke response at national and regional levels.
Discuss how existing global advocacy tools and policy frameworks such as the Global Stroke Bill of Rights, WHO Framework for Meaningful Engagement of People Living with NCDs and Mental Health and Neurological Conditions and Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs, can be used by the world stroke community whilst working with lived experience advocates.

Speakers: Patrice Lindsay (Lead of Engagement and Stroke Strategies, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Canada), Carole Laurin (Stroke Survivor, Canada), Marina Charalambous, Founder, (Cyprus Stroke Association, Cyprus)

SESSION 2

Wednesday 11 October, 17:15 - 17:45 EDT | Including stroke and NCD prevention and care services across the continuum of care to achieve UHC: The role of Appendix 3 of the WHO Global NCD Action Plan.

Objectives:

Highlight the importance of including stroke prevention as part of the entire stroke continuum of care into Universal Health Coverage (UHC) packages (as in the Appendix 3 of the WHO Global NCD Action Plan).
Explain the importance of assessing the effectiveness of stroke prevention and care policies by regularly monitoring stroke incidence, mortality and prevalence at the individual and population levels.
Explore options to support implementation and monitoring of Appendix 3 of the WHO Global NCD Action Plan in country NCD and UHC strategies, including tools such as the HEARTS package and WHO facility-based monitoring guidelines, and explore their effectiveness.

Speakers: Liz Scanlon (Director, Regional Mission, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Canada). Taskeen Khan (Department of Noncommunicable Diseases, WHO, Switzerland), Bo Norrving (Senior Professor of Neurology, Lund University, Sweden) and Jeyaraj Pandian (Professor and Head of Neurology and Principal/Dean, Christian Medical College (CMC), Ludhiana, Punjab, India).

SESSION 3

Thursday 12 October, 09:30 - 10:00 EDT | Making the case for investment in quality chronic disease care: Reversing the rise of catastrophic out of pocket health expenditure to work towards UHC.

Objectives:

Explain the need for financial risk protection against high expenditure of stroke and NCD-related services and explore disproportional impact of out-of-pocket costs on people living with NCDs in LMICs.

Explore example countries where UHC has benefited people living with stroke and other NCDs against the impacts of catastrophic out of pocket health expenditure.
Explore lessons learnt on developing investment cases for stroke in LMICs and outlining commitments made by Heads of State on financing in UHC Political Declaration.

Speakers: Stephanie Mohl (Vice President, American Stroke Association, USA); Gisele Sampaio Silva (Neurologist and Critical Care Physician, Brazil); Rita Melifonwu (Founder and CEO, Stroke Action, UK and Nigeria) and Arvind Sharma (Head - Department of Neurology & Stroke Specialist, Zydus Hospitals, Ahmedabad, India).

SESSION 4

Thursday 12 October, 16:45-17:15 EDT | Achieving equality within access to stroke services: How can we ensure gender balance in treatment and care for people with stroke and NCDs in low- and middle-income countries?

Objectives:

Identify examples of where women and girls are disproportionately affected by challenges in accessing stroke and/or other NCD services and highlight the importance of addressing these challenges.
Explore how we can generate more research, knowledge and advocacy work towards addressing the challenges in gender equality in access to stroke services.
Suggest policy recommendations to help address the significant barriers that women face to access timely, adequate, or affordable health screening and care for stroke and other NCDs, including suggestions on how to better integrate NCD prevention and care policy into other global development agendas and sustainable development goals such as gender equality.

Speakers include: Bo Norrving (Senior Professor of Neurology, Lund University, Sweden); Valeria Caso (Stroke Neurologist and Professor in Neurology, University of Perugia Stroke Unit, Italy); Amal Al Hashmi (Founder& President of the Oman Stroke Society, Oman) and Ivy Sebatian (Neurologist, India and Fellow, Stroke, Foothills Medical Centre, University of Calgary, Canada).

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