World leaders have adopted a crucial political declaration to combat noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health challenges.
Titled “Equity and Integration: Transforming Lives and Livelihoods through Leadership and Action on Noncommunicable Diseases and the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-being,” this is the first global declaration to address NCDs and mental health together.
Notably, NCDs are often driven by preventable risk factors such as unhealthy diets, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and air pollution—many of which also contribute negatively to mental health. As part of the new political declaration, world leaders have adopted three first-ever global ‘fast-track’ outcome targets to be achieved by 2030: 150 million fewer tobacco users; 150 million more people with hypertension under control; and 150 million more people with access to mental health care.
This political declaration is the most comprehensive to date, integrating lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and responses to emerging global challenges. It also addresses several pressing issues for the first time at the level of a global declaration. These include:
Beyond the big four
The declaration recognises noncommunicable diseases beyond the four major NCDs—cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases—highlighting their global burden, preventability, and the need for integration into health systems. Oral health, lung health, childhood cancer, liver disease, kidney disease, and rare diseases are newly addressed domains. Oral diseases are recognised as largely preventable and linked to modifiable risk factors.
The declaration also calls for national policies that promote an integrated approach to lung health, encompassing both NCDs and communicable diseases within primary health care.
To address the rising incidence of childhood cancer, it stresses the need for early access to affordable diagnostics, screening, treatment, and care as part of comprehensive cancer prevention and control. Liver cancer is addressed within broader cancer commitments, with an emphasis on vaccines that reduce cancer risk and on early monitoring.
The declaration also brings rare diseases into focus. It acknowledges that more than three crore people live with rare diseases and recognises the multimorbidity and co-occurrence associated with them, which increase the complexity of early diagnosis and treatment of NCDs and mental health conditions.
Expanded list of environmental risks:
The declaration recognises environmental factors as key modifiable risk factors for NCDs. It identifies air pollution as one of the major preventable contributors and calls for cross-sectoral action. Air pollution is to be integrated into broader governance, surveillance, and follow-up mechanisms, including resilient health systems for emergencies. The declaration also links the lack of clean cooking practices to air pollution and calls for the creation of health-promoting environments by addressing poverty, malnutrition, and urban planning—measures that indirectly support transitions to clean energy. It further emphasises the need for international cooperation and financing to support these efforts in developing countries.
Digital drugs
The declaration acknowledges digital technologies as both enablers of health and sources of emerging risks that exacerbate NCDs and mental health issues. It recognises social media exposure as a key digital risk, contributing to social disconnection, isolation, and loneliness, and emphasises the need to update regulatory and educational systems to protect children and young people. Excessive screen time is explicitly identified as a health risk, linked to social isolation, loneliness, and reduced physical activity.
The declaration also highlights exposure to harmful online content and stresses protective measures, including updated regulations to shield children and young people while preserving access to beneficial digital services. Misinformation and disinformation are identified as risks contributing to NCDs and mental health conditions, with calls to strengthen health literacy and regulate the digital environment in line with national and international law to counter these threats.
