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The first global count of who gets left behind with cancer, diabetes and heart disease

Qurexa Editorial Team21 October 20266 min read 0 0
The first global count of who gets left behind with cancer, diabetes and heart disease

What happened

On 20 October 2026 the World Health Organization published a report called "State of inequality: noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors". Noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, are the illnesses you cannot catch from someone else. The report covers four: cancer, cardiovascular disease (problems with the heart and blood vessels), chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes. It also covers five things that raise the risk of getting them: tobacco, alcohol, obesity and unhealthy diets, not moving enough, and air pollution. What is new is not that these illnesses are common. It is the way they have been measured. WHO says this is the first systematic global assessment of inequalities in NCDs within countries, rather than between them. It pulls together 35 indicators from nine multi-country data sources, covering roughly the past decade, and breaks the figures down by up to eight different dimensions: sex, age, economic status, education, where you live, disability, employment and migration status. In other words, it does not just ask how many people have high blood pressure. It asks which people, and whether they are being found and treated. WHO published a shorter companion piece alongside it, an advocacy brief called "The hidden inequalities behind noncommunicable diseases: from evidence to action".

Why this matters

NCDs are the biggest cause of death in the world. For most of us, they are also the most personal kind of health news, because they are the illnesses our families actually get. The point of this report is that averages hide things. A country can report decent cancer screening coverage overall while the poorest women in it are barely screened at all. A national figure for diabetes can look stable while the gap between the best-off and worst-off widens underneath it. Dr Ahmad Reza Hosseinpoor, who leads WHO's health inequality monitoring team, said the findings show which populations are "being left behind". Dr Alain Labrique, director of WHO's data, digital health, analytics and AI department, described inequality data as "a tool for action", because it lets countries see where coverage is failing and check whether progress is reaching everyone or just the easiest-to-reach. That is a useful frame for the UK too. We already know that healthy life expectancy varies sharply between areas, and that people in more deprived places get long-term conditions earlier. This report gives the global version of the same uncomfortable picture, measured properly for the first time.

What the evidence actually says

The findings run along several lines at once, and they do not all point the same way. On education and income: in low- and middle-income countries, people with less education tend to have higher rates of high blood pressure and diabetes. Poorer and less-educated women are less likely to be screened for cervical cancer. Tobacco use is higher among men with less education. On where you live: in many low- and middle-income countries, people in rural areas have less access to getting high blood pressure diagnosed and treated, and less access to cervical screening. Air pollution splits by place too, but in different directions. Rural households may face more pollution inside the home, often from cooking and heating fuels. Urban residents often face more pollution outdoors. On sex: men use tobacco and alcohol more, and are less likely to be diagnosed and treated for high blood pressure. Women are less likely to be active enough, and obesity is more common among women, especially in low- and middle-income countries. On age: younger adults with high blood pressure are less likely to be diagnosed and treated than older adults. That is worth sitting with, because high blood pressure usually has no symptoms. Physical inactivity rises with age, and obesity is most common between about 40 and 70. On other groups: unemployment is linked to not being active enough. People with disabilities face greater barriers to prevention, screening and treatment. Migrants may face financial, administrative and language barriers to using health services. WHO is also honest about a limit: comparable, properly broken-down data are often missing, which is part of why this exercise had not been done before.

Qurexa perspective

One thread in this report is about distance and access rather than medicine. People in rural areas being less likely to have high blood pressure found and treated is not a story about pills. It is a story about whether getting to a service is easy or hard. Qurexa works in Lincolnshire, which is a largely rural county with long distances between towns, patchy bus routes and a lot of people managing long-term conditions at home. Prescription delivery exists partly for that reason: if collecting a repeat prescription means a bus, a lift or a taxi, some people will go without. We would not claim that delivering medicines fixes health inequality. It does not. But the report's practical message, that services have to reach the people facing the biggest barriers rather than waiting for them to arrive, is one we recognise from the doorstep.

Practical advice

High blood pressure is the one worth acting on today, because it usually has no symptoms and because the report found younger adults are the least likely to have it picked up. In England, free blood pressure checks are available at many community pharmacies for adults aged 40 and over, and sometimes younger if you are at higher risk. It takes a few minutes. If you are invited for a screening test, go. Cervical screening, bowel screening and breast screening all work better the earlier a problem is found, and the report shows that the people who miss out are usually the people who were hardest to invite, not the people who refused. If you have a long-term condition, ask for an annual review and keep it. Reviews are where doses get adjusted and problems get caught. If you smoke, quitting remains the single biggest thing you can do. Local stop smoking services roughly triple your chances compared with going it alone. And on moving more: the useful target is not the gym. It is breaking up long periods of sitting, most days, by any means that fits your life.

What to know

WHO's "State of inequality" report, published 20 October 2026, is the first global assessment of inequalities in cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease and diabetes within countries rather than between them. Drawing on 35 indicators from nine data sources, it finds that less-educated, poorer, rural, unemployed, disabled and migrant populations consistently fare worse, from exposure to risk factors right through to diagnosis and treatment. Younger adults with high blood pressure are among the least likely to be diagnosed. WHO calls for inequality data to be collected routinely and used to target prevention and care, for proven population-wide measures to be put in place, and for people living with these conditions to help shape policy. Sources: World Health Organization, "WHO report examines inequalities in noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors", 20 October 2026, https://www.who.int/news/item/20-10-2026-who-report-examines-inequalities-in-noncommunicable-diseases-and-their-risk-factors ; World Health Organization, "State of inequality: noncommunicable diseases and their risk factors", 20 October 2026, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240125018 ; World Health Organization, "The hidden inequalities behind noncommunicable diseases: from evidence to action", 20 October 2026, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/B09918 This article is for general information and does not replace advice from a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.

#WHO#health inequality#diabetes#cancer screening#blood pressure#public health

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