A call to action to address the steatotic liver disease public health threat in Barcelona

Abstract

City health; Health policy; Liver disease

Salud urbana; Política de salud; Enfermedad hepática

Salut urbana; Política de salut; Malaltia hepàtica

Despite their high prevalence worldwide, steatotic liver diseases (SLDs) are largely excluded from most non-communicable disease (NCD) guidelines and strategies. We propose policies and strategies to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of reducing NCD premature mortality by one-third by 2030. To assess this gap—the exclusion of SLDs from NCD policies—in urban areas, we reviewed Barcelona’s strategies for NCD risks (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, healthy food access). We then explored applications of geo-spatial visualisation and whole-of-society approaches (e.g., citizen science engagement) aligned with the World Health Organization (WHO) Best Buys to provide recommendations to address NCDs, generally, and SLDs specifically.

JVL, JEMS, LAG, NB, AN, AA, DB, LRD, and DIW acknowledge support to ISGlobal from the grant CEX2023-0001290-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Program.