10-07-2020
Excess cancer mortality is a concern for many countries
Insurance AlertssExcess cancer mortality is a concern for many countries
Changing demographics associated with ageing populations and changing lifestyles in Asia mean that the cancer burden is only set to grow, according to a new report from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). As a reference, Asia-Pacific had an estimated 8.8m new cases and 5.5m cancer deaths in 2018.
The EIU report “Cancer preparedness in Asia-Pacific: Progress towards universal cancer control”, sponsored by the world’s largest biotech company Roche, examines the findings from the EIU’s Index of Cancer Preparedness and describes the complexities of the cancer challenge facing 10 Asia-Pacific countries: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.
The report says that countries in the vast Asia-Pacific region show great diversity in their healthcare needs, and responses to cancer are highly influenced by their stage of economic development:
- High-income countries with established healthcare infrastructures are primarily dealing with quality-of-care concerns.
- Upper-middle-income countries are refining their universal health coverage systems to close access gaps and ensure financial sustainability.
- Lower-middle-income countries are setting up the foundations for an increasingly important cancer challenge.
The research found a strong association between income level income level and overall cancer preparedness as measured by the Index of Cancer Preparedness: that is high-income countries outperform upper- and lower-middle income countries.
Furthermore, a strong correlation was seen between overall score in the Index of Cancer Preparedness and cancer control outcomes as measured by the ratio of mortality to cancer incidence in the countries. This demonstrates that, in broad terms, better preparedness to manage the cancer burden equates with achieving better cancer outcomes. Differences were observed between countries’ ability to address the cancer burden.
Given that as many as 70% of cancer cases in low- and middle-income counties in Asia are diagnosed at a late stage, an emphasis on preventive services and moving from opportunistic to population-based screening is needed. While Indonesia and Malaysia have demonstrated strong growth in health spending, and China has the biggest reduction in out-of-pocket health expenditure in the analysis, it is still only high-income countries that meet WHO-recommended spending for universal health coverage.
Source: Asia Insurance Review
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