Ghana Makes Gains Since 2000 But Still Lags In Progress Toward The Sustainable Development Goals

- Rates of HIV, malaria, and TB diseases have decreased since 2000; suicide and binge drinking have become greater threats to health

- International collaborative Global Burden of Disease enterprise offers insights into progress and challenges in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

By successfully combating diseases like HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis, Ghana has made great health progress since 2000. But the country needs to make even greater progress if it hopes to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to a new scientific study in The Lancet.

Ghana’s health gains were made against a global backdrop of expanded health coverage, greater access to family planning, and fewer deaths of newborns and children under the age of 5 are among several health improvements contributing to many countries’ progress toward achieving the SDGs.

While Ghana has increased access to basic health services to many more people, high percentages of the population remain at risk because of lack of clean water and poor hygiene. In addition, while access to family planning methods increased between 2000 and 2015, only 36% of women ages 15 to 49 who want contraceptives or other resources are able to access them.

The Clinical Assistant Professor at IHME, Dr. Tom Achoki, said, “Ghana has shown promising health progress in the past 15 years, particularly by combating problems like childhood stunting and deadly diseases like HIV, malaria, and neglected tropical diseases. But Ghana needs to take action to further drive down these disease rates, and tackle major challenges like water and hygiene.”

He added that “Much more energy and resources will be needed for Ghana to meet the SDGs.”

The study by the international Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD) collaboration, published today in The Lancet, analyzed each country’s progress toward achieving health-related SDG targets by creating an overall SDG Index score. Countries were then ranked by their scores to show which nations are closest to achieving the targets.

A nation’s SDG index score is based on a scale of zero to 100. As a result, Iceland tops the list with a score of 85. The lowest-scoring nation was the Central African Republic, at 20. Ghana has a score of 43, ahead of Kenya (score of 40), Cote d’Ivoire (35), and Nigeria (34); and just behind South Africa and Botswana (both with scores of 46) and Namibia (45).

To see how nations compare to others, countries were divided into five categories, based on a combination of education, fertility, and income per capita. This new categorization goes beyond the historical “developed” vs. “developing” or economic divisions based solely on income. Ghana was determined to be part of the second lowest group.

The study’s top findings for Ghana include:

• Malaria rates also fell from 284 cases per 1,000 people to 209 cases per 1,000 people over the 15-year period.
• Cases of new or relapsed tuberculosis declined from 2.3 per 1,000 people in 2000 to 1.5 per 1,000 people in 2015.
• The neglected tropical disease rate was nearly halved from nearly 78,000 cases per 100,000 people in 2000 to approximately 38,000 per 100,000 people in 2015. These include ailments like the eye malady trachoma, the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, and the lymphatic system ailment lymphatic filariasis.
• The suicide rate increased from 8.3 deaths per 100,000 people to 9.7 per 100,000 people in 2015.
• Alcohol consumption is on the rise with 7% of the population at risk of health loss from binge drinking, up from 6% in 2000.

IHME Director Dr. Christopher J.L. Murray stated that, “We know that international targets can motivate countries and motivate donors.”

According to him, the international Global Burden of Disease collaboration is committed to providing an independent assessment of progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

For example, Ghana’s SDG Index score increased between 2000 and 2015, from 30 to 43. The rate of new HIV infections dropped from 2.2 new cases per 1,000 people in 2000 to only one case per 1,000 15 years later. One potential driver of the decrease in HIV and other communicable diseases in Ghana is the concurrent increase in access to health services. In 2015, 67% of Ghanaians who needed an essential health intervention received it, in contrast to just 29% in 2000.

The proportion of countries that have accomplished individual targets varies greatly. For example, more than 60% of the 188 countries studied shows maternal mortality rates below 70 deaths per 100,000 live births, effectively hitting the SDG target. In contrast, no nation has reached the objective to end childhood overweight, or to fully eliminate infectious diseases like HIV or tuberculosis.

The GBD is the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological effort to quantify health loss across places and over time. The GBD enterprise – now consisting of more than 1,800 researchers and policymakers in nearly 130 nations and territories – is coordinated by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.