Massive economic losses are ahead for South America if it fails to address non-communicable diseases, according to a report launched on Tuesday by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

“Between 2020 and 2050, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health conditions are projected to cost South America more than $7.3 trillion in lost productivity and healthcare spending that is primarily due to premature deaths, disability and reduced workforce participation,” PAHO director Jarbas Barbosa da Silva told a media briefing.

“To put it in perspective, that is equivalent to the entire annual GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean lost to preventable and treatable conditions.”

To reach these figures, Harvard University researchers developed an analytical model over the period 2020–2050 in 10 South American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 

The report projects “massive economic losses for countries ranging from $88 billion in Uruguay to $3.7 trillion in Brazil”, said Barbosa, who described this as a “alarm bell situation”. 

“This is not just another health crisis. The escalated burden of NCDs and mental health conditions has become an economic emergency, perhaps the worst economic disaster in health, and people living with cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory conditions are at the heart of this storm.”

Nearly six million people died of NCDs in the region in 2021, with 40% of deaths in people under the age of 70. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer accounted for more than half of those deaths. 

Barbosa blamed the increase on NCDs on ageing and risk factors including tobacco use, unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, harmful alcohol use and pollution.

Around 60% of adults in the region are overweight in comparison to the global average of 43.5%. Diabetes is rising, and an estimated 43 million people do not have access to the treatment they need, said Barbosa. 

Thirty-nine percent of the energy in the region is generated from fossil fuels, which has increased air pollution. In 2020, exposure to harmful outdoor air particulate matter (PM2.5) such as from exposure to biomass smoke, resulted in approximately 37 000 deaths in South America.

Harvard’s Professor David Bloom said that policy makers in South America and beyond have, in many cases, tended to undervalue health.

The report is aimed at “helping economics ministers make grounded and judicious decisions about health sector budgets”, said Bloom.

The report encourages policymakers to take urgent action, including “prevention, universal health care, long-term care reform, the overhauling of healthcare systems, more rigorous health technology assessment and innovation, and responsive healthcare policy”.