About HPACC

What is HPACC?

  • The Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases (HPACC)
  • A collaboration of more than 80 physicians, economists, and public health researchers from >30 countries
  • Established in 2017 by researchers from Harvard University, the University of Birmingham, the University of Göttingen, and Heidelberg University

Why was HPACC established?

  • Approximately one-third of all global deaths are attributable to cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia
  • Cardiometabolic diseases are a growing problem globally, especially in low- and middle-income countries, yet major research gaps remain. While data are a crucial tool in crafting policies to address these diseases, in practice these data were previously difficult to obtain, harmonize, and analyze
  • HPACC was established to meet the clear need for answers to key health policy and clinical questions relating to cardiometabolic diseases globally

What is our goal?

  • To democratize the use of data on cardiometabolic diseases
  • To do high-impact analyses relating to health system performance, country benchmarking, equitable care, and clinical relationships relevant to cardiometabolic diseases in low- and middle-income countries
  • To inform policymakers and to monitor progress towards global targets
  • To build local capacity to analyze empirical data on cardiometabolic diseases
  • To become a global center of excellence for data sharing and analysis related to cardiometabolic diseases

What do we do?

  • Search, obtain and harmonize nationally representative survey data on cardiometabolic diseases
  • Provide cutting-edge policy, or clinically relevant analyses
  • Disseminate findings through publications and regular meetings attended by our global network

What have we achieved?

  • Published more than 20 peer-reviewed research articles in The Lancet, JAMA, Circulation, Diabetes Care, The Lancet Global Health, The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, PLoS Medicine, and other leading journals
  • Generated evidence for WHO Global Diabetes Compact, including the publishing of the global diabetes targets, and revision of WHO Essential Medicines List
  • Assisted colleagues in several country-level organizations to craft evidence-based policies based on our analyses

What is the HPACC dataset?

  • Nationally representative, population-based surveys pooled at the individual level
  • Data include >1.5 million adults from over 80 LMICs from 6 world regions
  • Is representative of >90% of the total adult population in LMICs        
  • Surveys were conducted from 2005-2020; a majority of surveys are WHO STEPS surveys

More details can be found in our Data Resource Profile and under Contact Us