Being a new organisation in St Kitts and Nevis and keen to make a positive contribution to improving the health and wellbeing of our community, over the past year we have been exploring the public health landscape in our Federation and started developing a strategy around the pressing issue of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) with a focus on childhood obesity and women’s health.

In today’s blog, we’ll be discussing our decision to tackle women’s health and in a future blog, we’ll explore childhood obesity.

Our decision to focus on women’s health was an evidence-based decision. Data from the Ministry of Health has demonstrated that women living in the Federation face a number of health challenges.  In St Kitts and Nevis, women are disproportionately affected by some NCDs. For example, 71% of diabetics in St Kitts and Nevis are women and 65% of cancer patients are women.

Non-communicable diseases are a significant issue for St Kitts and Nevis with 83% of deaths being due to these conditions. Driving the rise of non-communicable diseases is the high rate of overweight and obesity. In women, the rates are extremely high. Data has shown that 74% of females in St Kitts and Nevis are either overweight or obese.

We need to tackle these issues in order to improve the health and quality of life of women and prevent them from dying prematurely from diseases that are mostly preventable. Therefore, we are working towards developing a women’s health programme that will initially focus on awareness and education.

Our Plan

Over the next year, our plan is to host a series of women’s health events entitled ‘Girl Talk: Informative, Informal and Empowering Discussions About Women’s Health.’

These events will aim to inform and empower women enabling them to take control of their health and therefore not only improve their own health and wellbeing, but the health and wellbeing of their families, and by extension build a stronger, healthier nation.

The series began on 30^th March 2019 with Girl Talk: Fibroids and following this there will be regular events covering a range of women’s health issues.

Healthcare professionals, particularly female healthcare professionals, will be invited to give engaging presentations on health topics, and women affected by conditions will be invited to share their experience and what they have learnt from it.

Additionally, we will invite health and wellbeing brands (particularly those owned by women) to showcase their services at each event so that women can have easy access to relevant services. We will also invite female medical students to take part in this event giving them relevant real-world experience of women’s health. We are pleased to have formed a partnership with Because We Care at the University of Medicine and Health Sciences to achieve this.

As well as covering the most common NCDs, we need to focus on providing support and information for women in St Kitts who are affected by women’s health issues that tend to be overlooked such as fibroids, endometriosis and PCOS.

Additionally, childhood obesity is another significant challenge with 1 in 3 children in the Caribbean being overweight or obese. In St Kitts, the statistics are more alarming with 46.9% of secondary school children being overweight or obese. Studies have shown that children who are overweight and obese tend to become adults who are overweight or obese, and this puts them at risk of developing NCDs like diabetes, cancer, heart disease and more.  We believe that women can play an instrumental role in tackling childhood obesity by creating a healthy environment for their children, our lecture series will educate mothers on easy, practical ways to do this.

The key objectives of our women’s health event series will be:

1. To raise awareness of and create an understanding of women’s health issues to facilitate early detection and prevention
2. To provide a safe, informal platform where women can come together, receive expert advice and have an honest open discussion about important health issues and therefore reduce isolation, stigma and create a support network for women.
3. To empower women with the information to create a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their families to improve their general health and wellbeing

As mentioned previously our first Girl Talk event was on 30^th March 2019 and we were so pleased with how it went. Look out for a future blog post summarising this event.

We are really excited about our strategy for the next couple of years and hope you’ll follow us on our journey.

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References

1. UNICEF, Situation Analysis of Children in the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis, UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area and the Government of St Kitts and Nevis, Christ Church, Barbados, 2017
2. PAHO, Health in the Americas, 2012: St Kitts and Nevis, PAHO, 2012
3.  WHO, Diabetes Country Profile: St Kitts and Nevis, WHO, 2016