Why chronic disease prevention?

Why do we need a Collaborative Doctoral Programme in Chronic Disease Prevention?

Rapidly increasing rates of chronic disease are a key global societal challenge. Chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, are the leading global cause of disability and are responsible for 70% of deaths worldwide. Escalating rates of chronic disease present a major unsustainable component of health service activity and expenditure.

The leading modifiable behavioural risk factors are the same across conditions, including tobacco use, harmful alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and overweight and obesity. Prevention and management of chronic diseases requires a more 'complex', biopsychosocial approach to evidence generation than has been previously applied to answering questions about the effectiveness of clinical interventions.

Chronic disease prevention and management is clearly one of the most pressing current and future health challenges in Ireland.

Prevention programmes are urgently needed to reduce the burden on patients and health services. In Ireland, there is a need to develop skills, leadership and capacity in evidence-based chronic disease prevention.

The CDP-CDP aims to address this need and train graduates who are future national and international leaders in evidence-based chronic disease prevention research, research implementation, and policy development.‌

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