Monitoring noncommunicable disease commitments in Europe 2021: are we on track to reach targets 10 years after the Moscow Declaration and First United Nations High-Level Meeting?

Overview

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) represent a major challenge for public health in Europe, where they cause 90% of all deaths. Most NCD deaths are caused by a handful of main causes, including cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. The leading causes of the main NCDs are known and involve a few common behavioural risk factors – principally, tobacco use, harmful alcohol consumption, unhealthy diet and insufficient physical activity; these, in turn, lead to certain common biological risk factors – notably, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, high blood cholesterol, and overweight and obesity. Together, these factors are responsible for more than 85% of the NCD burden in the WHO European Region, but they can be prevented or controlled by means of a number of highly effective and low-cost health policies and interventions. Determining frequency and distribution and monitoring trends in the NCD burden and implementation of control and preventive policies and measures are essential to assessing progress towards achieving the WHO European and global NCD action plans, the Global Monitoring Framework and the Sustainable Development Goal targets. This report provides an overview of current trends in NCDs and their risk factors and the progress made in implementation of health policy to reduce the impact of NCD risk factors in the WHO European Region.