Each year, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) take the lives of 41 million people, most of them belonging in low- and middle-income countries. More than a third of these deaths due to NCDs happen prematurely between the ages of 30 and 69 years. Only 14 countries are on track to achieving Sustainable Development Goal on NCDs, SDG 3.4 target to reduce by one third premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases by 2030. Coordinated and strategic actions are needed to deliver the global promise.
The NCD Implementation roadmap 2023-2030 passed at the 75th World Health Assembly and the Global NCD Compact 2020-2030 call for governments to establish effective information systems to produce reliable and timely data at national and subnational levels on NCD risk factors, diseases, mortality, and systems. WHO is committed to assisting countries in implementing standards and tools to strengthen their information systems including routine facility reporting systems for NCD patient and programme monitoring, and thereby identify interventions which are lacking or in need of boosting, in order to accelerate progress in the prevention and control of NCDs.
WHO has significant experience in supporting countries in optimizing their health facility data systems, although not focused specifically on NCDs. While there have been initiatives in countries to develop tools and use NCD facility indicators, a harmonized approach to provide comparable estimates at regional and global levels is needed. Thus, WHO is introducing a facility-based patient and program monitoring framework including core and optional indicators that countries can adopt based on their priorities and capacities. The development of standards-based simple data tools is encouraged to help ease the burden of capturing, storing, and processing data, so countries can focus on using data for their decisions and actions.
In low-resource contexts, implementation of standards and tools, building capacity, improving data quality, and making effective use of facility-based data could be difficult. In this NCD Hard Talk webinar, speakers will discuss how they addressed on-the-ground challenges in adapting standards and implementing appropriate tools to bridge the gaps in the facility-based data for the management of NCDs.
Speakers:
Ren Minghui, ADG Universal health coverage and communicable and noncommunicable disease
Bente Mikkelsen, Director, WHO Department for NCDs
Leanne Riley, Unit head, Surveillance, Reporting and Monitoring, Dept for NCDs
Farshad Farzadfar, Scientist, Surveillance, Reporting and Monitoring, WHO Department for NCDs
Roberta Caixeta, Advisor, NCD Surveillance, Prevention and control, NCD and Mental health department, WHO Regional Office for the Americas
M.A. Balasubramanya, Advisor, Community Processes and Comprehensive Primary Health Care in National Health System Resource Centre, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India
Ardeshir Khosravi, Head of Health Information and Statistical Group, Deputy for Public Health at the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Iran (Islamic Republic of)
Andrew Moran, Director, Global Hypertension Control Resolve to Save Lives and Associate Professor of Medicine, Columbia University