Table 1. Contribution of national health examination survey data to other study types essential for noncommunicable disease health planning.

Study type	Data contributed by national health examination surveys to other study types
	Health examination survey indicator
	Risk factor prevalence	Self-reported diagnosis	Objective disease prevalence	Self-reported treatment and drug use	Biophysical parameters and disease control status	Perceived health and quality of life
Normative studies	General population and percentile age and sex risk factor exposure curves	National benchmarks for diagnostic coverage	National denominators for prevalence calculations and age- and sex-adjusted prevalence estimates for local administrative divisions	National benchmarks for treatment coverage	Population distribution curves and normal cut-offs for biophysical parameters; and national benchmarks for effective disease control coverage	National quality of life benchmarks; and local indexing of quality-of-life instruments
Care cascade and health system performance studies	NA	Diagnostic coverage	NA	Treatment coverage and inappropriate drug use	Effective treatment coverage	General population quality of life and disease-specific quality of life
Inequality studies	Estimates of relative and absolute excess risk factor exposure in underserved population groups	Gaps in diagnostic coverage in underserved population groups	Unequal disease distribution	Gaps in treatment coverage in underserved population groups	Gaps in effective treatment coverage in underserved population groups	Gaps in quality of life in underserved population groups
Studies of the global burden of disease and of the burden attributable to risk factors	Population attributable fractions and population impact fractions	NA	Prevalence-based estimates of the global burden of disease (DALYs and YLDs)	NA	NA	Estimates of country-specific disability weights
Health costs and avoidable costs studies	Attributable costs and avoidable costs due to changes in risk factor exposure (i.e. counterfactuals)	Avoidable costs attributable to increases in diagnostic coverage	Total burden-of-disease costs	Avoidable costs attributable to increases in treatment coverage	Avoidable costs attributable to improvements in treatment quality	Cost-effectiveness estimates (QALYs)
Changes in population trends	Changes in population trends in risk factor exposure	Changes in population trends in diagnostic coverage	Changes in population trends in disease prevalence and burden	Changes in population trends in treatment coverage	Changes in population trends in effective treatment coverage and biophysical parameter distributions	Changes in quality of life

DALY: disability-adjusted life-year; NA: not applicable; QALY: quality-adjusted life-year; YLD: year lived with disability.