A national medicines policy is the combined effort of a country (through policies, guidelines, strategies or plans) to ensure the availability, affordability and rational use of medicines that are safe, effective and of good quality. The policy usually contains provisions on the regulatory body (national regulatory authority) that develops and implements legislation to this end.

Non-routine data sources are sources that provide data on a non-frequent periodic basis (usually annually or even less frequently). Examples are large-scale household surveys, smaller scaled ad-hoc household surveys, special studies and national censuses.