Chronic Disease Registries

The GA-CDRC operates a multi-disease surveillance registry called The Barbados National Registry of Chronic Non-communicable Diseases (BNR). The BNR is an active surveillance registry for stroke, heart attack, and cancer funded by the Ministry of Health and Wellness(MHW).

The registry was initially developed by the former Head of Non-communicable disease(NCD) Surveillance, GA-CDRC, Dr Angela Rose. Currently managed by Dr Natasha Sobers, Principal Investigator and the Registrar, Mrs Shelly-Ann Forde, the BNR provides the MHW with incidence and mortality rates for the leading causes of cardiovascular death in Barbados: heart attacks and stroke, and retrospective estimates for cancer.

The latest(2017-2018) cardiovascular disease reports indicate that Barbados continues to struggle with efforts to reduce the number of new cases, recording one heart attack and two strokes per day. The BNR's surveillance data helped inform planning for the Stroke Care and Cardiac Unit recently constructed at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The performance of these units will also be monitored and evaluated by the BNR based on 28 day mortality data.

The data are used to continuously monitor the quality of care in the hospital and community and provide evidence for improvement in access to critical care.

In addition to demonstrating continued low rates of lung cancer, the subsequent cancer reports have shown our continued high incidence of prostate cancer and high mortality rates in the Barbados population as a result of cancer.