Health system response and capacity to address and respond to NCDs
Management of NCDs
Situation and trends
About 80% of countries have primary prevention, health promotion, risk factor detection and risk factor and disease management built into their health care systems. However, less than 60% of countries have support for self-help and self-care and less than 50% have home-based care.
Just over half (53%) of countries have government-approved evidence-based national guidelines, protocols or standards for managing NCDs. Also the degree of implementation is extremely low: only 17% of countries implement their guidelines.
Across WHO Regions, the South-East Asia Region and the Western Pacific Region were the ones with the highest percentages of countries with fully-implemented guidelines, protocols or standards for management of the behavioral risk factors harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and tobacco use. For all other regions, percentages were extremely low.
The situation was slightly better for some of the biological risk factors such as raised blood glucose, raised blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids and overweight/obesity. Across all regions, guidelines, protocols or standards for management of diabetes and raised blood pressure were the most likely to be fully-implemented, while percentages for countries with fully-implemented guidelines, protocols or standards for management of overweight/obesity and abnormal blood lipids were - with the exception of the Western Pacific Region - very low.
With regards to World Bank income groups, guidelines, protocols or standards for management of behavioral and biological risk factors for NCDs were more likely to be fully implemented by countries with higher income as compared to countries with lower income. In low income countries, full implementation of guidelines, protocols or standards for management of alcohol and tobacco dependence, dietary and physical activity counseling, overweight/obesity and abnormal blood lipids was almost inexistent.
