Most health problems linked to NCDs – problems such as chronic pain, disordered sleep, depression, disability, and premature death – are associated with late-stage or complicated disease, rather than with early-stage or uncomplicated disease. Whenever the “severity effect” outweighs the “prevalence effect,” the increasing overall prevalence of the NCD will be accompanied by a decreasing health impact, not an increasing disease “footprint,” as is widely assumed.
与NCD有关的大部分健康问题——慢性病痛、睡眠不规律、压抑、残疾和过早死亡——大多与晚期或复杂病症，而不是早期和非复杂病症有关。只要“严重度效应”压过了“普遍性效应”，总体NCD的普遍性的增加就会伴随着对健康影响的下降，而不是许多人认为的疾病“覆盖面”的增加。