Monitoring and surveillance of chronic non-communicable diseases: progress and capacity in high-burden countries.

The burden of chronic, non-communicable diseases in low-income and middle-income countries is increasing. We outline a framework for monitoring of such diseases and review the mortality burden and the capacity of countries to respond to them. We show data from WHO data sources and published work for prevalence of tobacco use, overweight, and cause-specific mortality in 23 low-income and middle-income countries with a high burden of non-communicable disease.