Preparation meeting for the 3rd Moscow NCD training course

On 22 March 2017 in Moscow, Russian Federation, WHO held a meeting with experts from the WHO Collaborating Centre on Training and Education of Health Policy-makers in Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases of the Higher School of Health Administration, I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University.

This was in preparation for the 3rd Moscow noncommunicable diseases (NCD) training course, which will focus on cross-sectoral working on alcohol as a risk factor for road safety and NCDs. The training will be held in autumn 2017 for countries of eastern Europe and central Asia.

Public health responses to NCDs and road traffic injury prevention have traditionally been conducted separately. This is partly because there is no unifying framework for intersectoral action. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development presents an opportunity to explore joint action that would lead to synergistic gains in these priority areas of health. There are common risk factors as well as societal and health responses that would benefit both; key among them are the control of alcohol use and the health services response to this critical risk factor.

WHO/Europe will run the capacity-building workshop in the context of the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD Office), financed through a voluntary contribution of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. The training will target policy-makers and government lawyers working in public health and road safety to establish and deepen professional capacity and networks for making progress on reducing the burden of NCDs and road crashes due to alcohol.