Injury prevention and control: National Action Plan for NCD Prevention, Control and Health Promotion in Pakistan.

The National Action Plan for Non-communicable Disease Prevention, Control and Health Promotion in Pakistan (NAP-NCD) incorporates prevention of injuries into a comprehensive NCD prevention effort. This encompasses the prevention of road traffic crashes (RTC)s, occupational injuries, falls, burns and other injuries. In this programme, surveillance of injuries--as part of comprehensive population-based NCD surveillance system, supplemented by multiple data sources--has been stipulated as an entry point, to injury prevention and control efforts. Actions areas for preventing RTCs include interventions to improve road safety education, identification and implementation of safety measures for traffic black-spots, enforcement of seatbelt and helmet laws and the development and implementation of highway ordinances. Recommendations have also been made to establish a road safety committee and to facilitate inter-sectoral action. It has also been deemed essential to enact and enforce legislation on locally manufactured vehicles, regulate drivers' training and licensing and evaluation of Highway Police Force from a performance and fiscal perspective. To prevent worksite injuries, a national consensus has been achieved to develop a comprehensive policy and to enact and enforce legislation for occupational health and safety; to include preventive health in the mandate of organizations dealing with worksite safety and to study patterns of occupational injuries and their determinants with a view to defining precise targets for preventive interventions. In addition NAP-NCD makes a strong case for the establishment of a National Safety Commission, the development of product safety standards for household usage, enforcement of legislation on building safety, and efforts to improve trauma care to the extent that a credible, cost-effective analysis suggests. It also calls for the need to formally evaluate interventions to reduce all forms of violence in Pakistan. Building capacity in the health system for injury prevention and building partnerships for sustainable outcomes in injury prevention have also been defined as priority areas.