BACKGROUND Non-communicable diseases share common modifiable and preventable risk factors, which are easy to calculate and can contribute to an effective policy planning for interventional purposes. The issue of non-communicable diseases is a growing global public health concern, with little work documented on the magnitude of the effect particularly in the tropics. A community-based study using a cross-sectional design was used to assess the prevalence, levels of risk and the major risk factors for non-communicable diseases in the Sekyere West District. METHODS Three hundred participants were randomly selected based on three main age categories for both sexes; 18-34, 35-51 and 52-68 with 50 respondents from each age category from both sexes. The STEPS Approach of the World Health Organisation was used as the major study instrument. FINDINGS For the socio-economic and behavioural risk profile variables, the study documented 8% prevalence rate of current active smoking, 100% low fruit and vegetable intake (below 500g/daily), 61.5% physical inactivity, 7.7% history of diabetes, 16.3% prevalence of hypertension, 63 % family history of hypertension and diabetes, and 18.3% current active alcohol usage with an increasing level of risk among variables studied with increasing age, being more prevalent among males than females. We measured the anthropometric risk profile variables: overweight prevalence rate was 28.66% and obesity prevalence 10.66%. Waist-to-Hip ratio grater than 1 for males (5.33%) and greater than 0.85 for females (55.0%) were recorded. We recorded a prevalence rate of 49.66% (systolic blood pressure) and 28.00% (diastolic blood pressure) among pre-hypertensives, 17.66% (systolic blood pressure) and 21.33% (diastolic blood pressure) among stage I hypertensives and 13.33% (systolic blood pressure and 27.66% (diastolic blood pressure) among stage II hypertensives. With biochemical risk factor profiles, prevalence rates of 37.00 % for impaired fasting blood glucose and 0.66% for mild hyperglycaemia were documented. CONCLUSION There was high prevalence of risk factors for non-communicable diseases across all age groups and between both sexes in the district. This provides an indication of the disease burden in future. This calls for an immediate action for prevention and control through initiation of lifestyle modification and health promotion programmes that emphasise healthy behaviours in the District