The increasing burden of non-communicable diseases in low and middle incomes (LMICs) is a major public health threat that can potentially slow the progress towards the attainment of the NCD targets set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The broad goal of this project is to develop a master of public health program in non-communicable diseases research and management for the prevention and control of NCDs with a service point for rehabilitation and intervention in carefully selected communities. The specific objectives of the planning process are: 1. Develop a training curriculum for a master of public health program in chronic non- communicable diseases. We will bring together a multi-stakeholder group to contribute to the development of multidisciplinary curriculum for NCDs.2. Establish a centre of excellence in chronic non-communicable diseases research, prevention and control. We will set up a centre in the School of Public Health that will be solely dedicated NCDs research. The School will dedicate space and resources for the designation of the centre and ensure that human and material resources are dedicated to the designation of the centre within the school. This centre will periodically create platform for dialogue between policy-makers and researchers to bridge the gap between evidence and practice 3. Identify and implement preventive, control and rehabilitative strategies in selected communities. As part of the proposed training, we will select communities in the project implementation region where students and faculty will collaboratively undertake research and provide preventive and rehabilitative services to enable students to acquire hands-on experience. 4. Establish students and staff exchange programs. In order to deepen and sustain the collaboration between KNUST, University of Pennsylvania and University of Botswana, we will develop modalities for students and staff exchange program. At the end of the planning process, we would have developed a comprehensive and multidisciplinary training curriculum in chronic non-communicable diseases control, prevention and management and establish a centre of excellence for research on NCDs. We will undertake the following major activities to realise our objectives: 1. Establish an in-house curriculum development Committee comprising of key faculty to spearhead the development of the training curriculum. 2. Organize a stakeholder engagement curriculum development workshop to facilitate the development of a multidisciplinary training curriculum 3. Develop modalities for students and staff exchange program between the collaborating institutions and 4. Apply and obtain program accreditation from the National Accreditation Board. We propose to focus on the following NCDs during the training because of their substantial burden in Ghana: substance abuse and misuse, injuries, mental illness and metabolic syndrome.
The burden of non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, substance abuse, heart diseases and injuries are increasing in low-to-middle-income countries including Ghana. A Ministry of Health (Ghana) annual report in 2010 showed that hypertension is the second leading cause of outpatient morbidity in adults 45 years and above. In order to address the significant unmet need for the control, prevention and management of NCDs in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa, a critical mass of highly skilled, competent and knowledgeable health workers who are well-trained is imperative and at the same time urgent.
