Zambia launches national STEPS survey on NCD risk factors

LUSAKA — Zambia’s Ministry of Health is rolling out a national STEPS survey across all ten provinces to measure the risk factors driving the country’s rising burden of noncommunicable disease.

The launch matters because noncommunicable diseases now account for nearly 30 per cent of all deaths in Zambia, yet the country has lacked up-to-date national figures on the behaviours behind them. The STEPS survey is designed to close that gap and give planners hard numbers to guide prevention and treatment, a recurring theme in Kwacha News’s health coverage. Without current data, the Ministry of Health has been steering a growing epidemic largely in the dark.

The Ministry of Health launched the WHO STEPwise Approach to Noncommunicable Disease Risk Factor Surveillance, known as STEPS, on 21 April 2026, according to the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa. The nationally representative study is intended to strengthen Zambia’s response to noncommunicable diseases, which include cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, cancers and chronic respiratory illness.

Teams are collecting data from approximately 5,762 adults aged 18 to 69 years across all ten provinces, the WHO said. The survey uses globally standardised tools, which allows Zambia’s results to be compared against other countries and against the country’s own future rounds.

The survey measures three categories of risk. The first is behavioural — tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets. The second is physical measurement, covering blood pressure, height, weight and waist circumference. The third is biochemical, including blood glucose and cholesterol drawn from sampled participants.

The Ministry of Health leads the survey in coordination with the Zambia National Public Health Institute, with technical support from the World Health Organization. Health Minister Dr Alex Katakwe launched the exercise, framing it as a foundation for evidence-led policy on a disease burden that has long sat in the shadow of Zambia’s infectious-disease priorities.

That burden does not exist in isolation from Zambia’s fiscal choices. Kwacha News has set out the fiscal case for health taxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks, the very products the STEPS survey is built to measure. The data the teams gather over the coming weeks will give that policy debate the numbers it has been missing.

Robust surveillance also reframes how progress is judged. Where Zambia has recorded gains against infectious disease — Kwacha News reported that malaria cases fell as deaths dropped 40 per cent — chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes tend to build silently over years, which makes a behavioural baseline essential for spotting them early.

Background

Noncommunicable diseases have climbed up Zambia’s health agenda as the population ages and urbanises and as diets and activity patterns shift. With these conditions now behind nearly 30 per cent of all deaths, the Ministry of Health has needed a reliable, nationally representative baseline to size the problem and target scarce resources.

The STEPwise approach exists precisely for that purpose. Because the survey applies the same standardised WHO tools used elsewhere, the 5,762-adult sample will let Zambia benchmark its tobacco, alcohol, diet, blood-pressure and blood-sugar profile against regional peers and track change when the survey is repeated.

The age band chosen for the survey, 18 to 69 years, captures the adult population in which noncommunicable diseases are most likely to develop and progress. By pairing what participants say about their habits with what the blood-pressure cuff and the blood test record, the Ministry of Health gathers evidence that self-reporting alone would miss — a person can underestimate their drinking or their salt intake, but a raised reading does not negotiate.

What to watch

The immediate milestone is the completion of fieldwork across the ten provinces and the publication of headline findings by the Ministry of Health and the Zambia National Public Health Institute. Those numbers will set the baseline against which every future noncommunicable-disease target is measured.

The longer test is what the government does with the results. Hard data on tobacco use, harmful drinking, inactivity, raised blood pressure and elevated blood glucose hands policymakers a case for prevention spending and for health taxes — and a yardstick to judge whether the next round, years from now, shows the curve bending.

For Zambian households, the stakes are immediate. Chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer drain family savings through years of treatment and lost earnings, and they fall hardest where health budgets are thinnest. Better data should let the Ministry of Health direct prevention to where the risk is concentrated, easing pressure on clinics, on employers and on every kwacha a family must spend when illness becomes a household’s biggest recurring bill.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions Zambian readers are asking about the national STEPS survey. Short answers follow, drawn from the Ministry of Health launch and the World Health Organization’s published account of the exercise.

What is the Zambia STEPS survey?

In short, the STEPS survey is a national study that measures the risk factors behind noncommunicable diseases. The answer, simply put, is that the Ministry of Health is using the WHO STEPwise approach to collect behavioural, physical and biochemical data — research that gives Zambia its first up-to-date evidence base on these conditions.

How many people are being surveyed, and where?

According to the World Health Organization, teams are collecting data from approximately 5,762 adults aged 18 to 69 years across all ten provinces of Zambia. The key is that the sample is nationally representative, so the findings can stand for the country as a whole rather than a single region.

What risk factors does the STEPS survey measure?

The survey measures three categories. Evidence is gathered on behavioural factors such as tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets; on physical measurements including blood pressure, height, weight and waist circumference; and on biochemical markers such as blood glucose and cholesterol. In other words, it captures both how people live and what their bodies show.

Why does Zambia need this data now?

Data shows that noncommunicable diseases account for nearly 30 per cent of all deaths in Zambia, which reveals a burden too large to manage without current figures. Analysis of the launch makes the point plainly: the survey exists to guide prevention and treatment programmes with evidence rather than guesswork.

Who is running the STEPS survey?

According to the Ministry of Health, the survey is led by the ministry in coordination with the Zambia National Public Health Institute, with technical support from the World Health Organization. Health Minister Dr Alex Katakwe launched it, and the standardised WHO tools used in the field underpin the credibility of the results.

Sources

World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa: Zambia launches STEPS Survey on Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs). Further country reporting: WHO Regional Office for Africa — Zambia country news.