Capacity building for an integrated noncommunicable disease risk factor surveillance system in developing countries.

For the first time, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that countries implement noncommunicable disease (NCD) surveillance by focusing on the major risk factors that predict the most common NCDs. To achieve this goal, member states are being offered a surveillance framework that provides a first step toward an integrated approach to NCD prevention and control. The goal of this framework, the STEPwise approach to NCD surveillance (STEPS), is to increase and sustain a country's capacity to ensure ongoing surveillance. Using the data to develop interventions and policies is an integral part of the STEPS approach, which, in turn, increases capacity to influence policy. Ongoing support from donors is essential to meeting the goal of increasing a country's capacity to undertake the NCD surveillance activity required to provide the basic information from which to formulate policy that effectively reduces the burden of disease.