Di-Ling Lu

The global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is increasing, Taiwan and Matsu are alike. Generally speaking, the mortality of NCDs in Matsu is lower than Taiwan. Furthermore, the trends in the most NCDs mortality in Matsu are decreased. However, NCDs is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity persistently both in Taiwan and Matsu. To prevent NCDs is the high priority for public health in Taiwan.

Prevention of NCDs is complicated and characterized by 3-M (multifarious etiologies, multi-state process, and multiple outcomes of different diseases) properties. One of the strategies is to reduce modifiable risk factors for NCDs, such as tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, insufficient physical activity, salt/sodium intake, and obesity. And to reduce the underlying social determinants of these risk factors through creation of health-promoting environments.

Community-based integrated screening (CIS) is a useful platform for prevention NCDs. Besides finding cases of NCDs, we can develop CIS-based lifestyle intervention throughout the whole disease course. This demands the development of a systematic and multi-state risk assessment model for each disease integrated as a unifying preventive framework.

Here, we demonstrate an example pertaining to prevention of NCDs by way of lifestyle intervention, it can be inferred that smoking cessation programs may not only prevent cardiovascular disease and its related disease but also reduce the odds of being susceptible to colorectal adenoma through the ameliorating the risk of developing metabolic syndrome that has been reported to be associated with colorectal adenoma.