Assessing the Readiness of Health Facilities to Provide Non-Communicable Disease Services in Kenya

Abstract

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is one of the major global public health challenges in the 21st century, undermining socio-economic development around the world1. In low-resource settings, NCDs drain household resources due to the associated high healthcare costs, and often cause income loss, resulting in poverty. The main types of NCDs are cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes, cancers, and chronic respiratory diseases (CRD) and these share four risk factors: harmful alcohol use, unhealthy diet, tobacco use, and physical inactivity2. Furthermore, mental health is a growing chronic health concern, often co-existing with other non-communicable diseases3. An estimated 41 million annual deaths are caused by NCDs worldwide, and nearly 80% of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs)4. Kenya, like many other LMICs, is experiencing an increasing burden of NCDs5 with NCDs accounting for 39% of all deaths, over half of the hospital admissions, and more than half of hospital deaths6.