Global response to the burden of cancer: the WHO approach

As the burden of many cancer types of major public health relevance worldwide are in part determined by behavioral risks, much of the success of cancer control depends on the up take of prevention strategies at the population level. Over the last decade, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed global prevention strategies of major relevance for cancer prevention and the prevention of other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as the 2003 WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and others. The implementation of these core strategies gained momentum in 2011, when heads of states at the United Nation's (UN) High Level Meeting (HLM) on NCDs declared that NCDs are a global health threat that menaces social and economic development globally and requires urgent action. They asked for a paradigm change of the global health agenda by including NCD prevention and control into the group of priorities set by the Millennium Development Goals. WHO's translation of this call for action by the UN into practice has been consolidated into one clearly defined the WHO Global NCD Action Plan 2013-2020, including the pre-existing prevention strategies. Although cancer risk reduction will profit from the WHO Global NCD Action Plan, comprehensive cancer prevention and control will require other supplementary strategies not included in the plan because they are not shared with other NCDs. Causality of the over 200 cancer types is complex. A myriad of non-behavioral factors such as environmental and infectious risks, require specific attention when planning comprehensive cancer prevention. In reducing the cancer burden globally much will depend on how prevention strategies are implemented and how progress in cancer treatment can be translated into the reality of health systems in less affluent countries.