Table 1. The 17 sustainable development goals and their relevance to kidney health, 2015.

Goal	Description	Relevance to kidney health	Relevant SDG 3 targets
1	End poverty in all its forms everywhere	Improvements in access to nutrition, personal safety and health care should enhance the prevention, detection and management of kidney disease Should reduce the incidence of catastrophic health expenditure resulting from treatment for kidney disease	3.8
2	End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture	Improvements in maternal nutrition and reductions in the frequencies of low birth weight and preterm birth should reduce the risk of CKD Reductions in the incidence of obesity should cut the risk of CKD, diabetes and hypertension	3.1, 3.2
3	Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages	Should improve screening for, and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of, kidney disease Public health programmes to promote community education, healthy lifestyles and vaccinations could also reduce the risk of AKI and CKD	All
4	Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and promote life-long learning	Should improve awareness and kidney-health-related knowledge May reduce use of nephrotoxic remedies and preparations	3.4, 3.5
5	Achieve gender equality and empower women and girls	Reductions in the numbers of teenage pregnancies and increases in pregnancy spacing may reduce the incidence of the low birth weight, prematurity and pregnancy-related complications that are all risk factors for CKD There should also be improvements in overall family health	3.1, 3.7
6	Ensure access to water and sanitation for all	There should be reductions in the incidence of the waterborne diseases and diarrhoeal illnesses that are major causes of AKI and in the incidence of the schistosomiasis that can cause CKD There should also be reductions in water pollution that can cause CKD	3.9
7	Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all	Should broaden opportunities to use mobile health in prevention and treatment and in community and health worker education Improvements in access to electronic information sharing and data collection could lead to improvements in the epidemiology, monitoring and surveillance of kidney disease	3.9
8	Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all	Improvements in personal access to health care, dignity and wealth could lead to improvements in the prevention and early treatment of kidney disease Improvements in the retention of health-care workers could reduce the so-called brain drain Task shifting in health care could be facilitated	3.b, 3.c
9	Build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation	Could support innovations to improve the affordability and sustainability of access to diagnosis, facilitate early treatment and secondary prevention and foster cheaper and more efficient means to prevent, diagnose and treat both AKI and CKD Could also facilitate investigation of the potential benefits of, or risks posed by, traditional remedies for kidney disease	3.b
10	Reduce inequality within and among countries	Could improve equity in the prevention, diagnosis and care of all forms of kidney disease Could improve access to expensive therapies, e.g. dialysis, hepatitis C therapy and transplantation Could improve geographical access to all forms of kidney care	3.1, 3.2, 3.7, 3.8, 3.b, 3.d
11	Make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable	Improved warning and protection from disasters could reduce crush-injury-related AKI Levels of preparedness in mass disasters, including for patients with AKI, CKD or ESKD, should improve Urban planning to eliminate food deserts and increase physical activity could help reduce diabetes and obesity-related kidney disease Reductions in exposure to alcohol, drugs and tobacco could also reduce the risk of kidney disease	3.5, 3.6, 3.d
12	Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns	Promotion of the environmentally friendly and sustainable local production of dialysis supplies could reduce dialysis costs, create jobs and support the local economy Any reductions in the need for dialysis should reduce the carbon footprint from dialysis There may also be adverse effects on kidney health as increasing access to cars and unhealthy processed foods could lead to an increasing prevalence of obesity and access to cigarettes may also increase	3.4, 3.5, 3.9
13	Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts	Global warming may have contributed to an epidemic of Central American nephropathy and to CKD of unknown origin that appears related to dehydration and toxin exposure The adverse effects of climate change on the transmission of pathogens causing infectious disease and poverty may increase the risk of CKD	3.2, 3.3, 3.d
14	Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources	Exposure to marine pollution may increase the risk of CKD	3.9, 3.d
15	Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss	Any reduction in the leaching of toxins from industrial waste into ground water could reduce the risk of the CKD associated with such pollution	3.9, 3.d
16	Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies	Any reduction in armed conflict could reduce the risk of AKI associated with crush injuries and major trauma and improve food security The incidence of low birth weight, which is a risk factor for CKD, tends to increase during wars Among prisoners and other marginalized populations, improvements in equity and justice could facilitate the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of kidney disease	3.d
17	Revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development	Improved global partnerships for health-care financing and regulation and health-related development and research could accelerate our understanding of kidney disease, reduce inequities in kidney care and reduce so-called transplant tourism	3.d

AKI: acute kidney injury; CKD: chronic kidney disease; ESKD: end-stage kidney disease; SDG: sustainable development goal.