Objectives

To determine the extent to which increased taxes on alcohol and tobacco products in Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries might successfully reduce consumption of those products and raise revenues, which could then be channeled into noncommunicable disease (NCD) prevention and control initiatives. Methods. The Tobacco Tax Simulation (TaXSiM) model, which was developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), was used to simulate the impact of tax changes on alcohol and tobacco products in three CARICOM member countries.

Like many nations in the Americas, the countries of the Caribbean are facing increasing morbidity and mortality associated with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In 2007, based on advocacy by Sir George Alleyne and others, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) convened the first in the world Heads of Government NCDs Summit. This summit issued the Port of Spain Declaration that served not only as a rallying point to accelerate the regional NCDs response, but also as a catalyst for the first United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs in September 2011.

Objective.

To assess how well Caribbean regional institutions (RIs) met their commitments from the 2007 Port-of-Spain Summit (POSS) declaration on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and evaluate the POSS impact on the United Nations High-level Meeting (HLM) on NCDs in 2011 (2011 HLM), HLM NCD review in 2014 (2014 HLM), World Health Organization’s 2025 NCD targets (2025 WHO), and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon in 2015.

In response to the epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Caribbean, the Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) issued the 2007 Port-of-Spain Declaration, “Uniting to Stop the Epidemic of Chronic Non-communicable Diseases” and declared the second Saturday in September to be “Caribbean Wellness Day” (CWD). CWD is a call-to-action for engaging the population of the Member States in confronting NCDs and their risk factors. This report reviews the genesis, implementation, and institutionalization of CWD in CARICOM and beyond.

Objectives. In 2007, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) convened the world’s
first-ever heads of government summit on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and issued the
landmark Declaration of Port-of-Spain: Uniting to Stop the Epidemic of Chronic NCDs. Since
then, ministry of health (MoH) focal points in each country have self-reported annually on
their NCD efforts, using a 26-indicator grid created to assess implementation of the Declaration.
Our objective was to assess the validity of those grid responses, as compared to information

Objectives. To estimate US public opinion, overall and by gun ownership status, about the public places where legal gun owners should be allowed to carry firearms.

Methods. We fielded an online survey among 3949 adults, including an oversample of gun owners and veterans, in April 2015. We used cross-tabulations with survey weights to generate nationally representative estimates.