Chronic conditions are by far the leading cause of mortality, illness and disability globally, affecting quality of life and increasing poverty in low-, middle- and high-income countries. They are also a major driver of health care costs. Chronic conditions are characterised by being long-lasting and include both NCDs (e.g. diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers, respiratory diseases, and renal diseases), chronic communicable diseases such as TB and HIV/AIDS, and also mental health. Multiple chronic conditions often cluster at the individual and population levels, requiring comprehensive and integrated approaches to their prevention, treatment and management.
- About the Centre
The Centre for Global Chronic Conditions was established at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in 2017 through a merger of two existing LSHTM Centres: ECOHOST – The Centre for Health and Social Change; and the Centre for Global Non Communicable Diseases. ECOHOST became a WHO Collaborating Centre over a decade ago, and CGCC was formally accepted as a WHO Europe Collaborating Centre in 2019.
The Centre comprises group of researchers from multiple disciplines with skills in epidemiology, economics, social and political sciences; and with a strong focus on health systems. We promote addressing chronic NCDs considering their interaction with other chronic conditions, in particular mental health, and chronic communicable diseases such as TB and HIV/AIDS. We seek to address chronic conditions in an integrated fashion in response to common determinants and responses between them. We work in low, middle and high-income country settings, including transitional settings and vulnerable populations such as humanitarian crises and migrant populations.
Our Vision is to improve understanding of and responses to chronic conditions in order to improve the health and health equity of people worldwide.
- Strategic aims
- To promote research excellence and methodological innovation.
- To facilitate collaboration within and beyond the School.
- To promote the visibility of the School’s work on chronic conditions in the public and political domains and support policy and public engagement for action.
- Centre themes
- Quantifying the problem - Epidemiology of chronic conditions.
- Explaining the problem - Modifiable upstream determinants and socioeconomic impacts related to chronic conditions.
- Acting on the problem - Policies, health systems response, and implementation science for addressing chronic conditions.
- Approaches
The key approaches followed by the Centre include:
- Multi-disciplinary research to examine the challenges posed by global chronic conditions, including complex intervention evaluation and complex systems thinking.
- A comprehensive scope from aetiology and prevention to management of chronic conditions.
- Improving the quality of data related to chronic conditions.
- International comparisons and collaborations to promote transnational learning across low, middle and high-income countries; including promotion of South-to-South collaboration.
- Promotion of research and learning across chronic conditions, including mental health and chronic communicable diseases.
- Focus on particularly vulnerable groups such as migrant populations and those affected by humanitarian crises and large-scale social change.
- Promotion of innovation across Centre activities (with a particular focus on the use of information and communication technology, or eHealth).
- Leadership