COVID-19 and noncommunicable diseases: Identifying research priorities to strengthen public health response

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the most important global public health event of this century, and India is among the first 15 countries with affected persons. Persons with male gender, older age, and preexisting noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are found to be associated with severe and fatal disease. Specific treatment modalities for COVID-19 are still elusive. NCDs are reported as presenting symptoms in COVID-19 patients, and preexisting NCD can worsen COVID-19 prognosis. The management of NCDs in the context of COVID-19 infection is challenging. India poses a huge burden of NCDs and their risk factors which could synergize with COVID-19 for serious illness and outcome. This article reviews and proposes a research agenda for COVID-19 and NCDs in the ambit of strategic approach: review of adequacy of existing mechanisms to tackle NCDs and their risk factors, strengthen the evidence base, enable remote access health-care service delivery, strategically revamp health systems to become more responsive, integrated, and universal, encourage all-round innovation through collaborations and partnerships, and empower community actions for home-based care. The key research domains are burden and epidemiology, health-care delivery, use of technology, sectoral approach, surveillance-monitoring-evaluation, behavioral and communication research, and governance and policy. Within each domain, key research priorities are identified which would be cross-cutting across more domains.