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According to the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2010, people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) are expected to live 30 years longer than they would have 40 years ago. Despite this improvement in life expectancy, people in the region face an increased threat from chronic diseases such as heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes. In 2010, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in adults surpassed communicable diseases in children as the leading cause of death in LAC. It is estimated that approximately 250 million people in the region live with an NCD. In the Caribbean alone, the burden of NCDs has escalated to the point that five times as many people are dying from chronic diseases than from all other illnesses combined.

Since NCDs strike at the heart of the economy, affecting people under the age of 60 primarily, it is crucial that the region come to terms with this health crisis and designate resources to tackling these diseases. According to a joint study by the World Economic Forum and Harvard School of Public Health, it is estimated that NCDs will cost the world economy $47 trillion over the next 20 years, representing 75 percent of global GDP and surpassing the cost of the global financial crisis. In 2009 at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad, OAS Member States stated their commitment to addressing the burden of NCDs on the economies of the Americas, "…through the promotion of comprehensive and integrated preventive and control strategies at the individual, family, community, national and regional levels and through collaborative programmes, partnerships and policies supported by governments, the private sector, the media, civil society organisations, communities and relevant regional and international partners."

It is in this context that the OAS and the Embassy of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago have convened the Conference on Non-Communicable Diseases in the Americas at the Headquarters of the Organization of American States in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, September 30, 2014.