The highest adult obesity prevalence in the Americas.

Why The Bahamas

If a protocol needs obesity, The Bahamas is where the prevalence is highest in the Western Hemisphere — 47.1% of adults, with more than three-quarters of the adult population overweight or obese. It is also within a two-hour flight of Miami and inside the US business day, which matters more for monitoring economics than sponsors usually credit.

The disease burden

At 47.1% crude adult obesity, The Bahamas records the highest prevalence in the Americas — ahead of Saint Kitts and Nevis (46.5%), Belize (41.7%) and the United States (41.3%). More than three-quarters of Bahamian adults are overweight or obese. For weight-management protocols this is the single strongest prevalence argument in the network.

Sites and infrastructure

• Princess Margaret Hospital, Nassau — the national referral hospital, under the Public Hospitals Authority
• Rand Memorial Hospital, Grand Bahama, and Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre
• UWI School of Clinical Medicine and Research, established 2002 and based at PMH — seven postgraduate specialty programmes, 165 specialists trained
• A full national medical school is at feasibility-study stage

Research heritage

None documented. The Bahamas has clinical training infrastructure through the UWI School of Clinical Medicine and Research but no landmark cohort, trial network or research institute. This is a capability-building opportunity rather than an established research market.

Regulatory & ethics

• Regulatory function sits with the Ministry of Health & Wellness, through the Chief Medical Officer's office
• Ministry of Health National Medical Ethics Committee
• The country relies on CARPHA's Caribbean Regulatory System for medicines assessment

The honest position: There is no established independent national medicines regulatory authority. The Bahamas National Drug Agency is a procurement and supply body under the Public Hospitals Authority, not a regulator — a distinction sponsors regularly get wrong. Ethics review runs through the Ministry's National Medical Ethics Committee, which is the operative gate.

Data quality: Thin — modelled WHO estimates with wide intervals, and the IDF diabetes figure rests on a 2011 STEPS survey. No recent national risk-factor survey.

How this site fits the network

Core network site — strong population proposition with a functioning ethics route; research infrastructure developing.

Our operation in The Bahamas is contracted, trained and monitored under the same quality system as our UK and US sites. One master service agreement covers all three regions, one budget negotiation, one set of payment terms. Sites in this network can absorb enrolment from under-recruiting UK or US centres without a new vendor qualification cycle.