Building a Healthier Region through Connecting Cultures, Data, and Information

Chief Data & Strategy Officer Thomas Carton, PhD, MS

The Gulf Coast is a vast collection of people and cultures who bring their rich traditions with them when they travel or resettle. Those traditions run deep and touch every part of their lives. The earliest known inhabitants of the Caribbean, the Kalinago and the Tainos, had their own system of caring for their people that included medicinal herbs, rituals, and spiritual ceremonies. They believed that the natural world possessed everything necessary to keep them alive, and some of those traditional practices remain in use today.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, like in Louisiana, faith and family can play a significant role in a patient’s treatment and recovery because they are the foundation of an individual’s support system.

This isn’t a lesson in cultural history, but here’s why this context is so important. Many people from Latin American and Caribbean nations migrate to the U.S. along the Gulf Coast and have for many decades, and understanding all the historical and contemporary factors that influence their health and the delivery of care is important for caregivers and public health professionals.

With this in mind, the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) has begun working with partners throughout the U.S., Caribbean, and Central America to develop a plan to collect and track information on a range of chronic diseases among people in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

This groundbreaking international effort thoughtfully braids data, culture and migration to understand the health impacts of today on the Gulf Coast. It acknowledges that technology, collaboration, and disease surveillance are critical to supporting the most fundamental goals shared by the native Caribbean people for centuries: that everyone throughout this Gulf Coast region lives healthy lives.

One Region, One Approach

But why now? Because some trends in global health have become undeniable. We know the leading cause of death in Latin American and Caribbean countries has shifted to non-communicable chronic diseases over the past 50 years. There is an increasing prevalence of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease. The prevalence of diabetes alone is increasing throughout the region and has been consistently higher in Mexico and Puerto Rico, where it is also one of the five leading causes of death.

Currently, we do not have a standard method to share health data among countries and territories. We can change that. LPHI has partnered with Harvard Pilgrim Health Center Institute, the Puerto Rico Public Health Trust, and health systems in Latin America, Mexico, and the Caribbean to propose a pilot project – the Latin American Network for Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Research, or LANCER – to measure health data about the presence of chronic diseases.

The recent addition to this effort of two new partners provides more evidence that there is widespread interest in LANCER. The University of Puerto Rico and Unisanitas-Keralty, a health system collaborative in Colombia, will provide data from multiple health systems in their respective countries.

Why is this important? Building a network through LANCER to gather and measure disease surveillance across countries can provide new opportunities to boost public health throughout the Gulf region. As one region, it makes sense to have one approach. LANCER represents a shared goal: improving the health of all people throughout the region. Achieving this goal would have tremendous social and cultural value. Insights gained through multi-country disease surveillance can help public health professionals understand the impact of social determinants of health and identify barriers to care.

Thinking Bigger, Acting Bolder

Disease surveillance is not new. Developed countries engage in disease surveillance because it provides valuable insights and opportunities to measure public health trends in real time. Surveillance is often done within countries, and its typical focus is infectious diseases. Expanding disease surveillance to include chronic health conditions among groups of countries is the next step. In fact, it’s the future! LANCER will provide a clearer view of trends in chronic diseases across these countries.

Why these countries? It goes back to the population makeup of the Gulf Coast. The region from Texas to Florida represents a pivotal geographic crossroads for people from numerous countries. The significant amount of migration that occurs among U.S., Latin American and Caribbean nations make it vitally important to use all resources available to track migrant health. Migration itself can impact an individual’s health. It’s also important to remember that while migration can exacerbate one’s condition, it can also result in access to better care and improve health outcomes. LANCER will help answer these questions by developing an innovative technology infrastructure to generate cross-country evidence.

This collaboration provides opportunities to lead the way on this important initiative to establish a data surveillance program that can improve public health on an international scale.

A parochial mentality to healthcare won’t work for an international region as rich as ours, perfectly poised to lead data and surveillance initiatives for the future. LANCER is the right approach.

Because a healthier region is a more prosperous region.

To learn more or participate in this project, please contact tcarton@lphi.org.