| Message from the Executive Director |
Dr. D. Prabhakaran, MD, DM, MSc
|
| The chronic care paradigm encompasses preventive and therapeutic care, and both must incorporate risk-factor management. The quest requires here a shared vision that echoes to address the serious problem: to serve society; to foster generalist and decrease fragmentation; to address the changing nature of illness and the changing nature of practice. We need carefully designed, comprehensive, nationally important chronic diseases policies and carry out relevant research and develop evidence based guidelines, which leave ample room for local adaptation and the full engagement of local communities and create an important basis to realize the full potential of research, training, policy development and advocacy program for chronic diseases. |
For a decade, CCDC has conducted various researches and studies to know the cause of these chronic diseases and has come out with many solutions to control and prevent chronic diseases which are evident in its track record on high impact publications. We are optimistic that there will always be support for innovative science that has the potential to improve human health. CCDC will continue with the spirit of innovation in providing cost-effective solutions through research. This we believe will result in CCDC emerging as a major force in chronic disease prevention. |
| Biography of the Director |
| Dr. D. Prabhakaran, MD, DM, MSc |
| Executive Director Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) Secretariat of Initiative for Cardiovascular Health Research in the developing countries (IC Health), New Delhi Professor of Chronic Disease Epidemiology & Program Director for the Fogarty International centre Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi |
| Nodal officer for Sikkim in implementing the National Programme under NPDCS programme, Government of India |
| Visiting Scholar Mike Rosenbloom Laboratory for Cardiovascular Research, Department of Cardiology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada |
| Biography |
| Dr. Prabhakaran has worked to establish CCDC as a leading center for research in non communicable diseases with a strong emphasis on fundamental, translational and clinical research involving Cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and cancer. He is a cardiologist and epidemiologist by training. |
| Till recently he was the Additional Professor of Cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. He received his MD (Medicine) and DM (Cardiology) degrees from AIIMS. He has done MSc in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University, Canada and has a career commitment to preventive cardiology. |
| He has been involved in several major international and national research studies including the INTERHEART Study, the CREATE Trial, Indian Council of Medical Research commissioned national case-control study on Acute myocardial infarction, British Heart Foundation funded projects on low birth weight and migrant Gujaratis, Wellcome trust funded impact of intra-country migration on CHD, the NIH sponsored STICH trial and the India Health Study. In addition, he is involved with many community based prevention programmes. He has recently been awarded the prestigious NHLBI-Ovations Grant. |
| He is Member of various national and international organizations like Scientific Council of the Section on Epidemiology and Prevention of the World Heart Federation, Cardiological Society of India, Association of Physicians of India, Indian Council of Medical Research’s Project Review Committee on Cardiology and Indian Council of Medical Research’s Advisory Committee on Hypertension. |
| He is a member of several international bodies, is on the review board of national and international journals and is a reviewer for national and international research funding agencies such as the Wellcome Trust. He is also a referee for scientific paper assessments for National Medical Journal of India, Indian Heart Journal, Journal of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, Indian Journal of Medical Research, Hypertension and International Journal of Cardiology. He is an associate editor of JECH which is a BMJ group journal. He has more than 150 publications in high impact prestigious journals including the JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine and Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, USA etc. |
The burden of chronic diseases has reached epidemic proportion in India along with the penitence of preternatural diseases. It is now experiencing a polarized and protracted double burden of disease. India, the second most populous country, has the highest number of diabetics in the world and annual coronary deaths are expected to reach 2 million by 2010. At the present stage of India's health transition, chronic diseases contribute to an estimated 53% of deaths and 44% of disability-adjusted life-years lost. Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes are highly prevalent in urban areas. Tobacco related cancers account for a large proportion of all cancers. Tobacco consumption, in diverse smoked and smokeless forms, is common, especially among the poor and rural population segments. Hypertension and dyslipidaemia, although common, are inadequately detected and treated. Demographic and socioeconomic factors are hastening the health transition, with sharp escalation of chronic disease burdens expected over the next 20 years. Despite this broad knowledge, the biomedical research community faces formidable challenges in understanding the dynamics, determinants and dimension of chronic diseases