Opportunities for Prevention and Control(cont...)

What Can Governments Do?

Moving to the role of governments, the World Bank Human Development Network document, Public Policy and the Challenge of Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases (Adeyi et al. 2007) had two key messages.

First, public policies are needed to prevent NCDs, to promote healthy aging, and to avoid premature death.

Second, with governments recognizing that the financial burden will increase in the

future, public policies need to respond to the pressures that NCDs will impose on future public and private health care delivery systems. The role of governments and the economic rationale for them to spend public resources on NCD prevention and control require careful examination (Adeyi et al. 2007).

In terms of public goods (such as health burden information, health promotion, and health system governance), there is a clear government role for stewardship to ensure that population strategies and policies are effective, and that the care delivered is of high quality and safe. Because NCD care can be expensive for patients—and a major portion of health treatment is paid out of pocket in South Asia—equity issues arise and health decision makers need to carefully consider catastrophic and impoverishing health costs (discussed in Chapter 1) in developing public policies.