IGHI and the Global eHealth Unit team up to deliver this month's NCD Forum.

Imperial’s Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) and Global eHealth Unit welcomed over 100 staff and students for their third NCD Forum last week.  This month’s focus was on the use of ehealth and big data in combatting and managing NCDs in the lower-and-middle income countries (LMICs). 

Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), such as cancer and diabetes, are the world’s number one killer, bringing hardship across both economically rich and poor nations. The largest burden - 80% (28 million) - occurs in LMICs, making NCDs a major cause of poverty and an urgent development issue.

IGHI’s monthly NCD Forum aims to bring together staff and students from Imperial and afar to discuss and disseminate findings on current research and innovations in the treatment and prevention of NCDs. 

Speakers at this month’s event included Drs Joe Gallagher and Chris Watson from the Global Health Research Group at University College Dublin.  Their work is primarily focused on low-and-middle-income countries, developing new strategies for diagnosis, treatment and management of disease, including biomarker & therapeutic research, ICT in Healthcare (mHealth, eHealth, Digital Health and eLearning) and healthcare system reform focused on primary healthcare.

Dr John O’Donoghue from Imperial’s Global eHealth Unit gave his insights on the role of eHealth in the lower-and-middle income settings whilst Ioannis Pandis from Imperial’s Discovery Science Research Group spoke about developments in the management of large data sets and how these might contribute to managing NCDs in low income settings. 

Vice President of Diabetes UK and International Diabetes Federation John Grumitt also presented a critical review of business models for preventing diabetes in the LMICs, and suggested how these might need to change to make further headway in the effective control of this disease.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion and Q & A and a chance for networking afterwards.

Photos of the event can be found on our Flickr pages here.

Get involved

Sign up to receive invites to our future forums here.

If you are interested in hosting a future forum and have a specific topic in mind, please contact IGHI’s Communications and Events Officer, Jo Seed at j.seed@imperial.ac.uk