Against the knowledge that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is responsible for one in three deaths here, we draw attention to a comment by Ms Deborah Chen, executive director of Heart Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ), that many Jamaicans are at high risk of non-communicable diseases and do not know.

In her address at the February 1 launch of Heart Month, Ms Chen pointed to the HFJ’s 2021 survey which revealed that, of the 14,000 self-selecting individuals and/or people referred to the HFJ by their doctor to do blood pressure and other checks, approximately 7,280 of them were at a stage that required medication.

“They were walking around as if everything was fine, when actually there was a problem that could cause ill health to them,” Ms Chen is reported as saying, whilst emphasising the importance of getting screened.

Additionally, Ms Chen said the HFJ found that, of the people it had screened for hypertension, more than 6,000 said they did not have a history of high blood pressure.

“These are people who just turned up saying they want to be screened. When we looked at those who said they had no history, 31 per cent had a reading that was high enough that would require medical intervention urgently, even though they were telling us they had no history of high blood pressure,” she related.

Those are figures that should cause great worry among Jamaicans, as they speak to a number of issues, among them poor eating habits and lifestyle choices that need to be changed.

Those changes are even more vital now as Jamaica, like the rest of the world, grapples with the novel coronavirus pandemic. Last September, the HJF reported that 51 per cent of people who had died from COVID-19-related illnesses in Jamaica had pre-existing cardiovascular conditions.

Last week, Ms Chen pointed to information from the country’s health officials, delivered at their COVID Conversations news briefings, that of the people who passed away from the novel coronavirus, 60 per cent had heart disease.

That, as she rightly said, “is very worrying” and should serve as a catalyst for Jamaicans to heed her advice, which we wholeheartedly support, to get screened. Notably, the last Jamaica Health and Lifestyle Survey, conducted in 2017, shows that more than half of the island’s three million population is overweight, more than 30 per cent have high blood pressure, 10 per cent have diabetes, and 17 per cent are affected by high cholesterol.

Treatment for these diseases is not out of reach of every Jamaican as the services provided by the Heart Foundation of Jamaica, in particular, are excellent and affordable. However, our appeal to the nation is to think prevention and make the changes in your lives, such as healthy eating and exercise, to avoid getting to the stage where you are in dire need of treatment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that “cardiovascular diseases are the number one cause of death globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year”. Our goal here in Jamaica should be to play our part in reducing that figure in much the same manner that we have accepted we have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our children, families, friends, and people in general, from the novel coronavirus.