The drive to accelerate the attainment of the NCD-related SDG targets requires bolstering by appropriate health information systems.

In many Member States, this requires the system to graduate from conducting sporadic cross-sectional surveys on NCD risk factors and collecting mortality data to more advanced techniques that help to analyse, measure and attribute impacts on NCD mortality, morbidity and risk.

This includes conducting regular health examination surveys, using new sources of data (such as electronic health records) and adopting new techniques (such as modelling of the impact of policy interventions).

WHO is supporting countries to plan and conduct NCD surveillance activities and disseminate and use findings for policy-making. WHO will undertake an epidemiological analysis of the NCD burden and systematic review of the WHO NCD best buys to determine the time from implementation to evidence of impact.

This evidence will be used to identify the quick buys – interventions that, when implemented, can make an impact in 2–7 years. This analysis will drive priority-setting in this area of work and contribute to defining the NCD country package.

This analysis will need to take into account the commitments of the European Programme of Work as well as European and global targets related to NCDs in Europe (European Action Plan targets, the United Nations High-level targets for 2025 and the NCD-related targets for 2030), and will drive priority-setting in SNI’s work.