Objectives: Some non-communicable diseases can be linked to unhealthy habits. They could be prevented with health-awareness in many cases; however, they are still the cause of numerous deaths and DALYs worldwide. Our aim was to analyse the number of health policy interventions aimed to reduce unhealthy lifestyle within the population of the six WHO Regions.

Methods: A quantitative, descriptive study was carried out based on data from the WHO Global Health Observatory database on years 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019. The following indicators were analysed: numbers of operational policy/strategy/action plans against tobacco and alcohol use, physical inactivity, and unhealthy diet. Ratio and rate of growth were analysed among six WHO Regions: African (AFR), Americas (AMR), Eastern Mediterranean (EMR), European (EUR), South-East Asian (SEAR), and Western Pacific Regions (WPR).

Results: Data of 194 countries were examined. Average response rate was between 87.63%-99,49% in the assessed years (n=170-193). Policy actions related to unhealthy diet were present in most member states (80.73%; n=155) in 2019, while actions against alcohols were present the least (75.39%; n=144). Only the number of policies to decrease tobacco use did not show a continuous increasing trend, their number decreased by 5,95% between 2017-2019 (due to WPR). When looking at 2019, 100% of SEAR used strategies for all analysed factors (100%; n=11), followed by EUR (90.57%; n=53) and WPR (88.89%; n=27). Policy actions that target physical inactivity increased the most between 2013-2019 (21.47%; n=53).

Conclusions: Most WHO member states have already implemented one or more operational policies to reduce or prevent unhealthy lifestyle. Differences were observed between WHO Regions regarding the number of these actions. It is important for governments to intervene with health policy tools to combat lifestyle-related chronic diseases.