Integrating Non-communicable Disease Care in Humanitarian Settings

The purpose of this document is to serve as an operational guide for public health staff of humanitarian organizations providing healthcare in humanitarian settings in order to ensure that care for persons with noncommunicable disease is included and integrated within the primary health care services. This document describes the rationale and guiding principles for addressing NCDs in a humanitarian context and provides operational guidance for addressing NCDs through an integrated approach at primary health care level. The guidance applies to all types of humanitarian settings and covers the initial acute and ongoing response phases. The priority NCDs targeted are diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Mental Health and many neurological conditions are not included in the scope of this guidance but covered under the mhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide (WHO and UNHCR Mental Health Gap Action Programme MhGAP Humanitarian Intervention Guide- see under programmatic Guidance). The document does not provide clinical guidance on the management of NCDs but clinical guidelines and resources that may be useful include:

• National clinical guidelines (if available)
• PEN-Humanitarian (open source)
• MSF clinical guides
• UNHCR- Primary Care International field guides