Table 2.
Action Items to Address Individual Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) in the National Action Plan on NCD Prevention, Control, and Health Promotion (NAP-NCD), Pakistan
| Priority Areas | Action Items |
|---|---|
| Policies and legislation | Effectively implement existing legislation on mental health — expanding its base to protect the interest of special groups such as prisoners, refugees and displaced individuals, women, children, and individuals with disabilities |
| Revisit policy on diet and nutrition to expand its focus on undernutrition; establish policies and strategies to limit the production of, and access to, ghee as a medium for cooking and agriculture; and establish fiscal policies that increase the demand for healthy foods and make healthy food more accessible | |
| Develop a physical activity policy | |
| Institute legislation for occupational health and safety | |
| Enforce seatbelt and helmet laws effectively | |
| Upgrade existing highway ordinances | |
| Enact and enforce legislation for locally manufactured vehicles | |
| Regulate drivers' training and licensing | |
| Enforce legislation on building safety | |
| Strive to improve trauma care to the extent that a credible, cost-effective analysis suggests | |
| Enforce the National Environmental Quality Standards strictly and transparently | |
| Institute proactive measures to contain potential risks to cancer in industrial settings; enforce labor laws more strictly | |
| Regulate chemical handling stringently | |
| Incorporate preventive health in the mandate of organizations providing health coverage for the labor workforce in order to contain exposure to carcinogenic agents in the environment and in worksites | |
| Develop a price policy for tobacco products | |
| Subject tobacco to stringent regulations governing pharmaceutical products | |
| Initiate fiscal measures to reduce dependence on revenues generated from tobacco | |
| Initiate measures for agricultural diversification with respect to tobacco cultivation and assisting with crop diversification | |
| Enforce legislation on smuggling tobacco, contrabands, and counterfeiting | |
| Enforce more strict legislation to phase out all types of tobacco advertising | |
| Regulate the import of areca nut | |
| Research | Identify causal associations specific to the population in NCDs to define precise targets for preventive interventions |
| Use clinical endpoint trails to define the best therapeutic strategies for prevention of NCDs, weighing cost against economic feasibility | |
| Research local policy and operations to examine tobacco tax policies in addition to marketing and advertising strategies | |
| Use existing data sources to assess cancer trends in industrial settings that may be exposing people to carcinogenic agents | |
| Conduct studies to bridge critical gaps in evidence of appropriate and cost-effective strategies for preventing common cancers in Pakistan | |
| Identify black spots on highways and on city roads; assessments guide interventions appropriate to reduce the risk of highway crashes in these settings | |
| Evaluate interventions to reduce all forms of violence in Pakistan | |
| Examine trends in outdoor air pollution levels and their determinants to develop appropriate public health interventions; address other priority areas such as conducting research to quantify the magnitude and determinants of chronic lung diseases attributable to indoor air pollution both in rural and urban areas and developing appropriate public health strategies to reduce risks in such settings | |
| Institutional mechanisms | Establish an Occupational Safety and Health Association |
| Establish a road safety committee | |
| Establish a National Safety Commission | |
| Develop product safety standards | |
| Establish standards for household useables | |
| Establish a National Cancer Control Council | |
| Sustain institutional support of established cancer registries to facilitate surveillance |