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. It usually contains provisions on the regulatory body (national regulatory authority) that develops and implements legislation and regulation to ensure the safety, efficacy and quality of medicines.

Resources that provide data collected on a periodic basis, usually annually or less frequently. In addition to large-scale household surveys, they may include small-scale, ad-hoc household surveys, special studies and national censuses.