The despondent faces of poor, sickly people in developing nations on our TV screens most nights can seem a world away from the majority of people of Wisconsin. But my work in some of the world’s most impoverished regions confirms that many of the diseases exacting a toll in Madison are decimating countries like Vietnam and Uganda.
One of the chronic diseases I’m most familiar with is diabetes, a condition once considered rare in the developing world. The incidence of diabetes is increasing in almost every corner of the world due to the same risk factors that we see in Western countries: obesity, poor nutrition and physical inactivity. By the year 2025, diabetes is expected to affect some 40 million, with 75 percent of cases occurring in developing countries.
(Linda Baumann is director of global health initiatives and a professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.)