Chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are estimated to have caused 33.4 million deaths worldwide in 2002; of these, 72% occurred in developing countries (1). In Pakistan, chronic diseases (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic lung diseases, and cancer) are among the top 10 causes of morbidity and mortality and account for approximately 25% of total deaths (2,3). Thirty-three percent of the adult population older than 45 years has high blood pressure; 10% of the adult population older than 18 years has diabetes, and more than 54% of men use tobacco. Data from an unselected autopsy series have shown coronary artery involvement (of greater than 50% luminal diameter reduction) in more than 24% of those studied. Moreover, the coastal metropolis of Karachi, with a population of more than 15 million, reports one of the highest incidences of breast cancer for any Asian population (4-9). Over the years, Pakistan's federal and provincial Ministries of Health have been heavily burdened with reproductive-health and infectious-disease issues. However, Pakistan is undergoing an epidemiological transition and, hence, is now also focusing on chronic diseases.

Pakistan has a population of 150 million and an annual gross national product (GNP) per capita of U.S. $700; during the last 10 years, 0.6% to 0.8% of its GNP and 5.1% to 11.6% of its development budget has been spent on the health sector (2). Seventy percent of clinical services are delivered by private-sector health care providers, and out-of-pocket payments are the major source of health financing, despite the existence of an extensive public-sector–owned health care system. Preventive and educational services are delivered almost exclusively by the public sector. Lately, as part of certain preventive programs (HIV and AIDS programs in particular), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been delivering preventive care, albeit in a contractual role in which NGOs enter into contracts with the public sector.

As in most other developing countries, NCDs had not featured prominently on Pakistan's health agenda until 2003, when a national integrated plan for health promotion and the prevention and control of NCDs, known as the National Action Plan on NCD Prevention, Control, and Health Promotion (NAP-NCD), was initiated. NAP-NCD attempts to obviate the challenges associated with addressing chronic diseases in countries with limited resources. Initially, an agreement was developed between the Ministry of Health and Heartfile, an Islamabad, Pakistan-based nonprofit, NGO focused on chronic disease prevention and control and health promotion; a month later, the World Health Organization (WHO) was asked to join the initiative. Heartfile's role in the NAP-NCD was to advocate for increased focus on chronic disease in the national health agenda. This was the first time an NGO had participated in a national health program in more than a contractual role.

The partnership, developed on a national level, was mandated with the task of developing and implementing a strategic plan to prevent and control the rates of NCDs (10). The NAP-NCP was released on May 12, 2004, within a year of the agreement's signing, and as of January 2006 is in its first phase of implementation (11,12).

Chronic diseases generally are linked by common risk factors and include cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, cancer, and chronic lung disease. However, the NAP-NCD also includes injuries and mental illness in its framework because of government requirements.

A three-stage process was used to develop the NAP-NCD: 1) planning within the disease categories, 2) setting priorities, and 3) developing an integrated approach to preventing NCDs (13).

Next, a situational analysis was conducted in which data on current epidemiological evidence for NCDs were gathered, existing strategies and policy measures were summarized, gaps in the system and opportunities that existed for integration with existing programs were outlined, and the potential for program implementation was analyzed. Then, a broad-based consultative process was established, which included health professionals, NGOs, professional societies, community representatives, donor and development agencies, corporations, and legislators, and priority action areas were identified. In the absence of local cost-effectiveness data, other priority-setting criteria were used, such as the extent to which an intervention was locally feasible, promoted community empowerment and participation, built on the strengths of partnerships, and contributed to capacity building and health systems strengthening. In addition, the capacity of the public health system and the ability of health care leaders to implement the NAP-NCD were also identified as important criteria.

Finally, a tool called the Integrated Framework for Action (IFA) was developed to identify action items that could be applied to all NCDs  (14). (The IFA is available from http://heartfile.org/pdf/IFAPDF.htm.) Additionally, the IFA included two sets of strategies — those that were common to all NCDs (Table 1) and those specific to each NCD (Table 2). The first set of strategies includes behavioral-change communication, focusing health services on NCDs, development of institutional mechanisms, and monitoring and surveillance; the second set covers legislative or regulatory matters and research. The IFA — which also provides guidance to administrators and health policy planners — helps set national goals at process, output, and outcome levels; defines integrated actions to meet those goals; and allows for program assessment.

The NAP-NCD prioritizes a population-based approach to chronic diseases that encompasses public education, behavioral-change communication, legislation, and regulation. These approaches have the greatest potential to reduce NCD risk and uphold the principles of WHO's "Health-for-All Policy for the 21st Century" because the high-risk approach (i.e., targeting individuals at high risk for chronic disease rather than populations as a whole) may be inaccessible to the majority of the country's underprivileged population. Thirty-two percent of Pakistan's population is below the poverty level of U.S. $1 a day (15). The NAP-NCD will be implemented in two phases.

The NAP-NCD presents one approach to developing a national strategy for chronic diseases in countries with limited resources. The strategy includes integration at six distinct levels. By grouping chronic diseases and integrating actions, there is a shift from a national-level approach to an approach based on diseases, which has significant implications for maximizing health care resources. Horizontally integrating actions with existing initiatives strengthens the public health system; adopting integrated models on surveillance and behavioral-change communication in addition to focusing health services on NCDs will yield important empirical evidence for emerging chronic disease programs. Additionally, integrating health promotion and prevention within the same program achieves two objectives for two populations with common activities. 

The evaluation mechanism of this model, which is structured within the accountability and progress charts of the IFA, allows program assessment at a process-and-outcomes level and assessment of the level of contribution partners have made to achieve the NAP-NCD's objectives.

This program is of value to all partners. By leveraging the strengths of the nonprofit private-sector technical partner (Heartfile), the government included NCD prevention in its policies. NGOs and the civil society can contribute to achieving national goals; however, this potential remains largely untapped. This model provides a mechanism for engaging NGOs in the national decision-making process and ensures their participation both in the formulation of health policy and implementation of national plans. Though an evaluation mechanism, it also enables the assessment of each partner's contribution to achieving objectives. In this model, WHO is gaining experience with a model in which WHO resources — which are otherwise allocated for the public sector — support the private sector in a national model. The partnership is therefore integrated with national health priorities and complements state initiatives.

This program is one of the few examples of a public–private partnership for chronic disease prevention, an area that has largely remained unexplored as part of global efforts to build public–private partnerships. This program's implementation is expected to yield important information about the performance of the health system by building chronic disease partnerships in evidence-based models. As for infectious disease partnerships, ethical, methodological, accountability, sustainability, and governance issues must be considered (22-25).

This initiative also created a mechanism for visible involvement and participation of many other stakeholders in the national consultation process in addition to avenues for their participation in the process of implementation. This is important because many factors that affect NCDs are outside of the health sector domain; these include trade, agriculture, finance, education, and communication. However, there is also the need to fit this strategy within a more explicit policy framework — one that makes it obligatory to link relevant health ministries in a manner that is mutually supportive of national NCD goals. The program needs to be supported by a clear, strong, and sustained political commitment.

The NAP-NCD can serve as both an empirical basis for an integrated approach to NCDs and an experimental basis of health sector reform in the area of public–private collaboration; most developing countries have limited experience with each. It is also likely to yield useful lessons for ministries of health, NGOs, and multilateral agencies for establishing chronic disease programs in developing countries.