Non-Communicable Diseases

Premature NCD deaths Situation: In the Region of the Americas approximately  44% of total death occurred before the age of 70 years old. In lower and upper middle income countries about 52% of deaths occurred before that age compared with 35% in high income countries, an excess of 17% of deaths.    Read more (+ Interactive data visualization)

Find below topics of interest related to Non-Communicable Diseases, including mortality burden, NCD's situation and trend and risk factors.

Risk Factors

Common, preventable risk factors underlie most noncommunicable diseases. Most noncommunicable diseases are the result of four particular behaviours (tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, and the harmful use of alcohol) that lead to four key metabolic/physiological changes (raised blood pressure, overweight/obesity, raised blood glucose and raised cholesterol).

Health System

Surveillance for NCDs should cover monitoring of risk factors, health outcomes (mortality and morbidity) and system capacity. Significant progress has been made over the past ten years on risk factor surveillance, including population-based data on the behavioural (harmful use of alcohol, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and tobacco use) and biological risk factors (raised blood glucose, raised blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids and overweight/obesity). 

RELATED CONTENT

:: UN High level meeting on Non Communicable Diseases
:: Non-Communicable Disease Regional Program
:: Priorities of cardivascular diseases in the Americas (Full text, pdf)
:: Prevention of cardivascular Diseases. Guidelines for assessment and management of cardivascular risks
:: Global Status Report on NCD
:: Noncommunicable diseases country profiles, 2011
:: Global InfoBase