Page 82 - WEF Reoprt 2020

Dementia affects 10 million more

people each year

populations, overcoming entrenched habits
and commercial interests. Even in richer
countries, the medical and social care costs
of NCDs could bankrupt health systems.

NCDs could also disrupt societal cohesion:
growing health inequalities could widen
economic inequalities, earlier onset among
younger people could stifle the economic
growth necessary to fund care for older
people, and ageing electorates could prioritize
spending on pensions and healthcare over
other issues such as education, infrastructure
and climate resilience.

Climate change health effects. The
WHO deems climate change to be “the
greatest threat to global health in the 21st
century”. Human-induced climate change
28
is already impacting the health of millions
and challenging health systems globally. It REUTERS/VALENTYN OGIRENKO
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affects the quality of the air we breathe and
both the quality and quantity of the water Demand–capacity mismatch. As more
we drink and the food we eat. Air pollution is people live for longer with increasing health
already costing the world more than US$5 and social care needs, and as new drugs
trillion from decreased productivity every and technologies are developed, surging
year. Extreme weather conditions are demand and expectations are stretching
30
putting populations around the world at risk current approaches to financing care. Health
of food and water insecurity. Today’s children expenditure growth is outpacing inflation in most
face a future of increasingly serious climate- countries. It has reached an unsustainable
35
related hazards: less nutritious crops, air 18% of GDP in the United States, resulting
36
pollution exacerbated by burning fossil in an increasing transfer of financial risk from
fuels, rising average temperatures and other insurance companies to individuals through
weather-related disruptions to livelihoods. 31 rising premiums, co-pays and deductibles;
and in bipartisan anger over drug prices,
Climate change also exacerbates the hospital bills and out-of-pocket spending.
incidence of infectious diseases. Warming
temperatures are expanding mosquito- Most health systems continue to focus on
friendly habitats beyond the tropics, reactive care in hospitals—detecting and
spreading diseases such as malaria, dengue, treating disease—and give too little attention
yellow fever, West Nile virus and Zika into to NCD prevention and control. They have
new regions. In 2015, the El Niño effect yet to adapt their infrastructure to combine
allowed Zika to spread from Brazil to the online, remote and retail care settings to
rest of South America. In 2012, the United improve information, screening, treatment
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States logged a record 5,500 cases of West and support for patients and carers.
Nile virus and an increase of 70% in dengue Health systems—and governments more
fever. By 2080, extreme global warming broadly—will also need better health policies,
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could expose a billion people to mosquito- regulations and promotion strategies to
borne diseases in previously unaffected reduce environmental and lifestyle risk
regions such as Europe and East Africa. 34 factors of NCDs.

The Global Risks Report 2020 77