Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases in Iran: A Window of Opportunity for Policymakers

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the most common causes of mortality worldwide in the 21 st century (1-4). More than 36 million people die annually due to NCDs, that almost 80% of these deaths occur in developing countries (lower-and middle-income countries) (5, 6). Hence, the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005 proposed a strategy for control and prevention of NCDs which offers the health community a new global goal: to reduce death rates from all chronic diseases by 2% per year over and above existing trends during the next 10 years (1, 7). According to the latest estimates of the WHO, countries are expected to lose considerable amounts of national income as a result of NCDs negative impact on labor supplies and a reduction in gross domestic production (GDP). According to the same report in 2005, estimated losses resulting from heart disease, stroke and diabetes in national income has been calculated 18 billion international dollars in China, 11 billion in Russia, 9 billion in India and 3 billion in Brazil's. Also, loses for the countries of the United Kingdom, Paki-stan, Canada, Nigeria and Tanzania were also 1.6, 1.2, 0.5, 0.4 and 0.1 billion, respectively (8). Most of the developed countries have focused comprehensively on the importance and financial burden of NCDs. While in developing countries the issue is not addressed properly and policy makers have not paid enough attention to it (9). Like other developing countries, Iran suffers from the great burden of the NCDs and according to the report of WHO, from the 395,000 deaths that occur in Iran, approximately 76% of them have been devoted to NCDs (10). Thus, Iran has been undergoing a great economic cost and burden of NCDs. In recent years in Iran, the new efforts have taken place to prevention and control of the NCDs at the micro level, but serious attention at the macro level has not been paid to this matter. But after the new Government in Iran in 2013, the health sector was raised as one of the new Government's priorities and became to the main priority for government politicians. Therefore, according to the circumstances contained in Iran and changing the perspectives of government politicians on the health, health policymakers have very leading appropriate window of opportunity so that they can in order to promote public health and decrease the burden of NCDs, execute the following policies: 1. Informing the authorities about …